


And the person that you were(you cannot find)

by Crescent_Blues



Series: Antichrist Verse [7]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bruh shoulda tagged, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Coping, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like I should've tagged that before but what's done is done am I right, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, Multi, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker's raging anger issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spider-Man: Homecoming (Movie), That I gave him, Trans Peter Parker, whoops, woooo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23761966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crescent_Blues/pseuds/Crescent_Blues
Summary: Peter hasn’t left New York since Germany.Since Siberia.It leaves a bad taste in his mouth.Leaving New York?Never goes well for him.Going on field trips?Always ends badly.At the same time?Putting them together feels like a recipe for disaster.(Peter Parker and the horrible, no good, very bad series of events. MJ is right about everything, Ned is the only sane one here, and WOW he thought the Luck was bad before, but get a load of THIS)
Relationships: It's not iron dad don't @ me, James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Academic Decathlon Team (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: Antichrist Verse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1510475
Comments: 435
Kudos: 717





	1. The Truth and the Life

**Author's Note:**

> I looked up actual street names for y'all. That's how much I care. Anyway!! Here's act vi!!! Stay safe, drink lots of water, WASH YO HANDS, and don't forget that there's always an end to every struggle!  
> Title for this is from Believe by the Score :)

The cool thing about being an intern for R&D at SI is that he has several people he's supposed to report to that aren't Mr. Stark.

Mr. Stark still comes down to his labs to poke at him anyway and bring him to the fun projects on Monday and Friday evenings.

H. Rowe was convinced that he was some sort of secret child, seeing as how he'd survived Miss Potts, but that was before Bucky stopped by to pick up Captain Rogers' shield.

Apparently he was tired that day, and just didn't feel like dealing with the tower.

Which was valid.

Bucky, however, loved the tower.

Thought it was cool as hell.

Delighted in asking FRIDAY questions he could probably just Google.

Delighted in spooking the employees just by existing in the same space as them.

Delighted in making the rumors about Peter, in his words, more _'interesting',_ because if everyone was going to gawk at him in public, he might as well enjoy it.

They'd had a conversation.

Slipped to talk about more confidential things in Russian.

Peter had been trying desperately to hint that the Falcon was head over heels, but JB was either oblivious or already knew.

Both options were still the worst.

And, coincidentally, this conversation had been observed by H. Rowe of Intern Days Past and Newly Concerned And Somewhat Frightened Person E. Jackson.

R&D was now convinced, in a turn that had Bucky _cackling,_ he was an ex-spy and/or agent that was brought to the side of good by Bucky who was, obviously, the only tie to his dark past.

It was a pretty entertaining theory, he'd give them that.

The Black Widow had heard about it, either from Miss Potts or just because she knew everything, and when she breezed through the tower to yell at Mr. Stark, she only called him _comrade._

It was, at the least, _really funny_ to watch everyone else go pale, even though he'd tried to explain that he'd just known Bucky for a long time.

They somehow interpreted buying him a sandwich as a dumb twelve year old as being the shifting point of Peter's character arc and towards the side of like, good, or whatever.

God, he really didn't know at this point.

It was wild either way.

Constantly expanding.

He was pretty sure the break room had a conspiracy board about it.

Anyway.

Fun thing about being an intern for R&D.

He should be reporting to the lab director, and he usually does.

Except for Monday's and Friday's when Mr. Stark takes him up to the big fancy labs on the top floors full of all kinds of secret and confidential stuff.

Sometimes he steals chemicals to work on his webbing, because he doesn't have school for another week and a half, and it's easier to steal than go picking through the biohazard bin at ESU.

Mr. Stark kind of just doesn't care and lets him go wild, occasionally giving him something to actually work on.

Other times, he tries to give him things.

There's a 25/75 chance of these situations going favorably for Mr. Stark.

This is not one of those situations.

"No!"

Mr. Stark drags a hand down his face and groans into his palms.

"But if you just–"

Peter hisses, long and loud, and hunches over his suit.

"No!! No touching!"

Mr. Stark doesn't even flinch, the bastard. "I want! To give you! An AI!"

"I don't _need it."_ Peter yells back.

"Uh, if you're tracking Chitauri energy signatures?" Mr. Stark asks dully, nose wrinkling. "Yeah you do. And I know you can just make one on your own, but I _already have one._ Work smarter, not harder."

Peter has boundary lines.

Shakey ones, but he has them.

And his suit is off limits.

No Stark tech in his suit.

He has comms and possibly some new materials in the fiber weave he didn't before, but that's it.

He trusts Mr. Stark, but his suit is _his._

_Spider-man is his._

"I don't want your _AI–"_

"You can modify her code, whatever you want!" Mr. Stark interrupts quickly. "All she'll do is what you want her to."

"And you won't monitor me like you monitor everyone else?" Peter asks skeptically.

Mr. Stark doesn't immediately respond.

"... I can't promise that." He eventually says into the tense air. "Just– just in case."

Peter scowls harder.

 _"Just in case?_ Mr. Stark, that's my _life–"_

He interrupts again.

"Yeah well, bad shit happens when I'm not paying attention to people, Underoos. I don't want another casualty of my ego on my hands." He whispers so very bitterly, acid and rot in his tone. "I have a heart condition. I can't live with it."

And.

That's.

…

Once upon a time, Peter Parker was eight years old at the Stark Expo.

He was eight years old and almost died two years after his parents.

Tony Stark stopped that from happening.

Tony Stark didn't have powers.

Tony Stark was just really, really smart.

And little baby Peter Parker had thought that was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Little baby Peter Parker had thought that tech genius Tony Stark, who created a metal suit to help people that couldn't help themselves, was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Because little baby Peter Parker couldn't help himself, not with his eyes and his lungs and his joints, and he certainly couldn't help others, not a chance.

Not as he was.

But Tony Stark wasn't special.

He didn't have powers like Captain America in the history books.

He was just a guy.

That made himself a suit so that he could be extraordinary.

And that had given little baby Peter Parker hope.

If Tony Stark had offered little baby Peter Parker an AI, had offered him suits and jobs and fancy labs, he would've accepted in a heartbeat.

Peter isn't little anymore.

Peter is fifteen years old with more funerals under his belt than he can count on one hand.

Fifteen year old Peter Parker is kind of bitter and not even kind of tired, is definitely angry and also sorta definitely getting better, is used to going toe to toe with giants and standing tall because if he doesn't he'll crumble under the shadow of it all.

Clint's also been telling stories about how stupid all the Avengers are for years, and it's hard to take Mr. Stark seriously when Peter knows that he almost murdered Clint with couch cushions for eating the last poptart.

And just because he's met the guy.

Mr. Stark used to feel like the tallest man on Earth.

Used to feel like Atlas, bearing the weight of the whole world as he made mistakes again and again and again but still tried to _fix_ them _again and again and again._

Mr. Stark was human.

And he was really stupid, with a guilt complex to match.

Peter remembered when Stark Tower got used to facilitate the Battle of New York, remembered when the Mandarin attacked, remembered when Mr. Stark looked at Captain Rogers like he was cutting out his heart and his lungs and his everything, leaving him to bleed out in a frozen cold facility.

Peter had a good memory.

And he had a guilt complex just as bad.

It seemed like a requirement for vigilantes and superheroes.

He wondered, distantly, what had happened to make Mr. Stark start rattling, start panicking, start _not sleeping._

The wrinkles of his face were deep and the bags under his eyes were dark.

Peter could taste the coffee and energy drinks on his breath even from where he was standing, several feet away.

Was it the Chitauri?

Was it the weapons tracking?

Was it the old dead scars wrapped around his elbows, the new pink line across his forearm?

Was it anything substantial at all?

Was it just an ill timed relapse?

Peter knows what it's like.

He knows.

He's not sure if anyone's ever died on Mr. Stark's watch that was really important to him.

He's not sure.

But sometimes Miss Potts' skin glows along her veins and sometimes he can see the burn marks poking out of Happy's collar and sometimes War Machine will have to stop walking because falling at the Siberian facility broke something in one of his legs that can't quite be fixed.

Peter understands it.

He does.

He always keeps an ear out for the heartbeats and smells that match them.

He always does that.

Which is… almost a kind of monitoring, in a sense.

He just doesn't need technology to do it.

It's all in his head.

It's not fair.

It's not a good situation.

And it's hard to make himself not care.

"Nothing's going to happen to me," Peter grounds out as firmly as he can. "I've been doing this for almost four years, Mr. Stark. I'll be fine."

Mr. Stark looks very old in that moment.

"Yeah? And how can I trust that? That something won't go wrong?"

Peter thinks of falling buildings.

Of his uncle.

Of Taskmaster's bolos and swords.

Of the shrine in his room with those red, red glasses.

"You can't." He says into the still air. "But that's my choice. I don't need to be coddled. Your ego is the least of my worries."

Mr. Stark snorts derisively.

"Yeah? You got skeletons?"

Peter smiles, sardonic and bitter.

"Sure. Some of them even used to be alive."

That was probably not the best answer, but he had to know by now that Peter had more secrets than he was old.

Mr. Stark still looks so goddamn _tired_ when he looks at him, aging years in moments.

"Yeah," he mutters. "Got some'a those too, kid."

Peter leans on the table with his elbows, digging into the suit, and links his hands behind his neck.

He's tired too.

He doesn't want to argue anymore.

He just–

He doesn't like not agreeing with people he likes.

He likes Mr. Stark.

He can be pretty obnoxious, but he's still… he's still good, and he lets Peter use and take his stuff.

He paid for Bucky's rent.

He paid for Bucky's _trial._

Mr. Stark likes to pretend that he's a worse person than he is.

It feels like it's his hobby.

He's flawed.

But he's good.

Peter sighs and makes a decision.

He's gonna modify the hell out of it, and he gives Mr. Stark maybe a week before he can't stop himself from working around it, but he wasn't wrong about Peter needed it to track the energy signatures.

Modifying one would be infinitely easier and a thousand times quicker than making his own.

School starts soon.

He doesn't have time for that.

"Give me the AI."

———

Summer break and sophomore year feel like forgiveness.

Like a reset.

Everyone just… quietly forgets the last day of school.

The seniors graduated.

He was provoked.

It was a one time incident.

Nothing to pay attention to further.

After all– people had been seeing Captain America and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier all around Brooklyn the whole break, and that was something _infinitely_ more interesting to talk about.

So was the fact that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts had almost sold Avengers Tower, but had settled on just finally clearing out all of the dangerous artifacts and having them move upstate to the Avengers Compound, rebranding the thing as an official Stark Industries property.

Peter didn't have to change his work commute, so that was nice.

Very considerate of Mr. Stark.

Happy was still worrying all over the place about moving day.

Best to avoid that walking ball of anxiety.

Peter was supposed to let him know, though, if he found the weapons traffickers.

There was a 50/50 chance of him actually doing that.

Was gonna depend on the lead up and how exactly angry or offended he felt.

Weapons traffickers weren't like thieves that stole because they couldn't get any other jobs.

They knew exactly what they were doing.

Turk sure fuckin did, but here they were, years later, him still doing it, going to jail, and getting caught again.

He didn't even fight it anymore.

Had started asking how his day was the last time he'd brought him to the 15th.

Criminals were weird.

Peter is also technically a criminal, and has dozens of assault and battery chargers to his name, but that's not the point.

Criminals were weird.

Why did Turk keep doing this.

Why.

Ugh.

Anyway.

Moving on, internal monologue.

Wade had started pushing for Peter to cut his patrol time back by four hours, from four am to midnight, because he was a) back in school now and b) "like six years old what the fuck go to _sleep_ you are _growing"._

He had been. 

Distressed?

Distressed.

When he'd learned that Peter had been pulling hours like that starting freshman year.

Everyone always freaks out.

He could handle it, though.

He'd been handling it since before he was a teenager.

Stupid stuff was what he _did._

And besides that, he was bad at sleeping.

The dreams got too twisted with reality, and he didn't like it.

He didn't like seeing the fall and the bloody snow.

He didn't like remembering.

Wade told him that that was unhealthy.

Loudly.

Often.

Whenever he saw Peter start to slip.

Wade was a hypocrite.

Wade also didn’t care that he was a hypocrite.

He was a lot like Matt in that sense.

But Matt also hadn’t tried to stop Peter.

He’d just tried to make it better so that he didn’t have to do what he did.

Peter had learned his trade with a partner.

It had been hard learning how to work on his own.

It had been hard to become Spider-man.

It had been even harder to put the horns back on alone.

The Devil and Prince of Hell’s Kitchen were a duo.

A joint act.

He wasn’t supposed to work alone.

The Antichrist wasn’t supposed to be alone.

But it would have to be alright.

He had Wade now.

And that was something.

Even if it was a pain in the ass having someone tell him when he should and shouldn’t be patrolling.

If he cut the Antichrist’s hours, he’d be cutting Spider-man’s hours too.

Wade didn’t know about Spider-man though.

He didn’t think.

The only vigilantes that knew about Spider-man and the Antichrist being the same were the Defenders.

They were the only outsiders that weren’t really outsiders.

Foggy knew though, and so did Karen and Melvin, but they’d been there from the start.

Bucky knew because of course he did.

He was pretty sure Clint and the Black Widow knew, and were keeping his secret and humoring him respectively, but they hadn’t said anything.

Peter wanted the Antichrist and Spider-man to stay far out of each other’s circles.

The Antichrist scared people, and was dangerous, and fought to break.

Spider-man was kind, a neighborhood hero across an island, and fought to help.

He didn’t go hunting for sport when the anger got too loud.

He didn’t put people in the hospital no matter how bad they were.

It was a delicate balance.

A circus act he’d walked into.

A corner he’d backed himself against.

He was a good actor, though.

And he’d been doing this whole thing for over half a year now, being Spider-man, holding back, acting kinder than he felt some days.

The act of letting more people in on the lie, the deception, even just the thought of it, left him feeling more fragile than he had since Midland Circle.

People always found out.

That was what he knew.

That people always _found out._

He didn’t know how to tell people.

He didn’t know how to tell Aunt May.

He didn’t know how to tell Ned and Michelle.

And it felt like one day they were going to find out and they’d all shatter into stardust just like Foggy and Matt.

May finding out felt worse some days.

Because of what happened to Ben, and what he used to do.

He thinks that if May knew he was going out and seeking fights, going out and getting _hurt,_ she would make him stop.

She would make him stop and she’d never stop worrying ever again.

He couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t worry her.

Not anymore than he already did.

Other days though, Ned and Michelle finding out felt like the end of the world.

Like they’d realize what exactly it was he did that got him so hurt, and they’d hate him for not telling them the truth.

For not letting them in on the secret.

For lying for five years.

About Matt and about Bucky and about himself.

So he tried not to think about it.

He tried to think about other things.

Like about how Michelle didn’t want to be called Michelle anymore.

She wanted to be called _MJ._

She’d gone on vacation, she’d said.

She’d grown.

The AcaDec team thought this was very cool.

They were also a little bit scared of her, because Michelle’s glares were legendary, but that wasn’t the point.

AcaDec took this very seriously.

But him and Ned knew.

They knew.

That she was as much of a nerd as them.

A fellow loser.

She could be called MJ all she wanted.

They’d still known her since middle school and been to her house.

They’d heard her rant on pigeons.

They’d seen the conspiracy boards.

She couldn’t hide being a nerd from them.

They were her best friends.

Peter wasn’t sure how he’d ended up with the both of them, and he wasn’t sure why they put up with him.

But Ned and MJ were important to him.

Really, really important.

And the thought of losing them to _anything,_ especially himself? 

It was terrifying.

———

Peter hasn’t left New York since Germany.

Since Siberia.

It leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Leaving New York?

Never goes well for him.

Going on field trips?

Always ends _badly._

At the same time?

Putting them together feels like a recipe for disaster.

Luck wise, and also because it feels like everything will start happening as soon as he leaves the city.

He has Wade, though.

And he’s been hearing rumors that Mr. Castle might be back in New York.

The Defenders are there too.

And going to DC isn’t just a field trip.

It’s AcaDec _Nationals._

He can’t miss that.

“You’re sure you can take the weekend off?” Mr. Harrington asks.

Peter drums his fingers against the desk.

“I only work during the week, Mr. Harrington. It’s in my contract.” He says absentmindedly, and smiles a little when Charles says Hydrogen instead of Uranium. “I’ll ask about Friday afternoon though. If it’s really important, I can just meet up with you guys after, but it should be fine as long as there aren’t any disasters or building lockdowns.”

Mr. Harrington eyes him very seriously.

“And you’re sure you don’t have anything else you need to do?”

It doesn’t sound like he’s asking about the internship anymore.

They don’t talk about the MoMA.

But it still happened.

Peter makes a face, and turns to look at him head on.

“It’s been on my calendar since summer break, Mr. Harrington.” He answers. “I planned around it.”

Mr. Harrington doesn’t seem to be comforted by that.

Maybe it’s the mention of having to plan around the trip.

Maybe it’s the mention, the reminder, that there’s more going on in Peter’s life than school.

“He quit marching band and robotics club ages ago.” MJ adds unexpectedly. “He’s got time.”

Peter watches as everyone but Ned turns to look at her.

Her expression doesn’t change at all as she says, “He’s my best friend, what did you expect?”

His chest hurts.

Ned coos as Peter makes a heart with his hands.

MJ makes one right back before unfurling her hands and flipping them both off.

“To be fair,” Charles starts, “Marching band is a cult.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sally says from the floor. “Big time. I think some highschool from like, Texas got to be in the Macy’s Parade? Not even a college. A _high school._ That’s some black magic.” 

Peter swings an arm out to point at Sally. “See? Cult. Black magic.”

“All right.” Liz calls over the beginning of Cindy saying _“What about robotics club–”_

Everyone turns to look at her.

“Flash, you’re in for Peter,” she says, looking over her shoulder. “Just in case he gets caught up with his internship.”

He twists to look and–

For a moment, Flash’s face is unreadable.

It’s not an unfamiliar expression.

Flash looked like that at the MoMA and on the last day of school, too.

It’s not unfamiliar.

Just foriegn.

Because he doesn’t know what it’s supposed to mean.

He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much.

He hasn’t been able to read Flash in a long time.

Then it’s gone.

“I dunno. I gotta check my calendar first.” Flash says, a crooked smile on his face. “I got a hot date with Black Widow coming up.”

Peter laughs when Abe rings the bell to say "That is false."

Liz is smiling behind the podium and Sally laughs too, over from where she's lying on the floor.

Mr. Harrington just looks tired.

"What’d I tell you about using the bell for comedic purposes?"

Abe rings the bell again.

"Not to?"

"Abe, please."

Nationals is important.

It’s not more important than New York, but it is _Important,_ capital i and italics.

Wade says that there should be more to his life than just prowling city streets, especially since he’s only a kid.

Foggy says it all the time too, but Foggy was also the one throwing himself into every case he could at Hogarth, Chao, and Benowitz to distract from the fact that there was supposed to be four of them.

He was doing the same thing Peter was, just without busting heads.

He was doing the legal equivalent.

It felt like everyone he knew was a hypocrite, but maybe that was because he was one too.

Like calls to like, and all that.

Peter’s trying to be better though.

Trying to split the workload, trying to take off more time.

Like when Taskmaster forced him underground but without quitting cold turkey.

He just has to find a balance.

Hammerhead is Watanabe’s problem now, but he still has the Chitauri tech dealers to worry about, an AI to finish editing, and rumors to track down.

He needs to know if Mr. Castle is really back, because if he is, that’s another weight off his back.

Peter is _trying though,_ really trying.

It doesn’t look like trying, but it is.

He’s building that Lego Deathstar with Ned when he gets back from the tower.

Does that cut his patrol times down to almost nothing?

Maybe.

But he needs to take a step back.

He needs to breathe.

It feels like drowning, but he needs to _stop,_ even if it’s just for a night.

Things are starting to get better again, and Peter knows that it never lasts, he _knows,_ but he doesn’t want to waste this.

He can’t.

He can ask Wade or even Clint, if he’s really feeling like finally crossing that threshold, to look into his Chitauri guys, because he _knows_ Mr. Stark hasn’t found anything, if he really needs to.

He shouldn’t though.

It’ll be fine for one night.

It has to be.

Things _will_ get better.

Because they _have to._

———

It’s faster to swing home than it is to take the A train.

It also gets in some of the patrol time he’s cutting into to spend time with Ned.

And, he figures, why not test out the AI’s systems?

There’s a couple of petty thefts, a couple of lost tourists, but it’s a quiet day in Manhattan and an even quieter one once he reaches Queens.

Someone asks him to do a flip.

That’s how slow the day is.

Until the AI, who had been silent the whole way from the tower, suddenly says, “Chitauri signature detected,” and a bright blue beacon shows up on his fancy new HUD.

It feels like being in a real life video game.

Assassin’s Creed, maybe.

The objective isn’t white or gold, but like.

Same thing.

It’s pretty close too, and he doesn’t realize why the hairs on the back of his neck are rising, why the ice picks are starting to dig into his spine, until he springboards off a street lamp and lands on the next, the signs below reading _164th Street_ and _Union Turnpike._

Something in his stomach starts to sink, and he takes a moment to breath in the air and it smells like–

Bread and plastic and meats.

Cat hair.

Dish soap.

_People._

Queens Community Bank is being robbed in front of him, but for a moment, all Peter can focus on is the fact that Delmar’s is to his back, that there're two heartbeats in the shop, one strong and heavy and the other small and slow.

_Shit shit shit._

Focus.

Focus focus focus.

He’s fought with plenty of worse odds before but–

But Ben used to take him to Delmar’s.

Ben.

It was their place.

May had brought him a couple times after Ben died, before she got too busy.

He’d brought Bucky once or twice, but they usually got sandwiches in Brooklyn at Kaplan’s.

That was familiar for Bucky.

It was like a piece of home.

Delmar’s was a piece of Peter’s home.

He can’t let anything happen to it.

He can’t.

It’s like Ben’s glasses and the last baseball tickets they got, like Matt’s rosary and his columbia sweater, like the beaten locket with long gone faces inside and his mom and dad’s engagement rings.

May and Ben had always said they proposed at the same time, so there were two rings left over when they got married.

It had seemed very cliche at the time, and he hadn’t believed them. 

There were a couple pictures too, of his young and happy parents, smiling and laughing and alive.

They didn’t know they were going to have a kid, have a son.

They didn’t know their work was going to swallow them whole.

They didn’t know they were going to die in five years from the picture date.

They didn’t know.

No one did.

There was a quiet part of him, a horrified part of him, that wondered if the Winter Soldier had done something to his parents like how he’d done something to Mr. Starks.

It was a dark one, a _bad_ one, and he tried not to think about it.

He knew it wasn’t right, that the plane was sabotaged, the reports said so, but the only other information he had was that it was an ordered and barely filed report.

A footnote.

He didn’t know why it happened.

He didn’t know who did it.

He didn’t know who _ordered_ it.

It was just a fact of life.

The plane had been sabotaged.

His parents were dead.

The Winter Soldier could’ve killed them.

The sky was blue.

Matt was dead.

Ben was dead.

Breath.

Compartmentalize.

Move on.

There’s a bank being robbed in front of him.

There’s a cat and a man in the building behind him.

Time won’t stay slowed down forever.

The world won’t wait forever.

So Peter has to breathe in.

And let Spider-man breath out.

It’s been a while since he’s dealt with a bank robbery, and he’s never fought against the Chitauri tech before, but he’s smart.

He is.

He’s smart and he’s been doing this for a long time.

There’s only one way to learn to fight this stuff, and that’s by acting.

So he kicks off the street sign, flying over the tarmac, and lands on the opposing side walk.

He pushes open the door and leans against the frame.

“Oh, hey cool! You guys are the Avengers!”

He smiles when they all freeze and turn to face him.

“Why are you robbing a bank though?” He raises an eyebrow and the lenses of his mask squint. “I’m pretty sure you guys are like, loaded.”

Spider-man cracks his knuckles and rolls his shoulders.

“Eh, whatever. What’s one more fight between friends right?” He points at the one in the Ironman mask and tilts his head.

“You got a new suit already, didn’t you? Yeah? Cool.”

Thor mask takes a step back.

He grins behind the fabric.

“Don’t worry. I’ll try to keep it quick this time.

“You know. Instead of ripping out your arc reactor.”

———

Damage Control will have to rebuild Delmar’s, but no one’s dead and that’s the thing that really matters.

Sometimes you can’t stop collateral damage.

If he repeated that enough, maybe he would believe it.

He couldn’t have known that weapon would do that.

The guy _using it_ hadn’t even known it would do that.

It’s not his fault.

Mr. Delmar and Murph aren’t dead, and they didn’t breathe too much smoke.

Damage Control will pay for it because it was done by a Chitauri weapon.

Is it burning to hell right then?

Yeah.

But there’s only so much he can do.

He’s not the Human Torch.

And besides that, it’s getting late.

Later than he wanted.

He’s probably going to skip out on Hell’s Kitchen and just stick to Queens, and that _sucks,_ but Wade said that the next time he saw him in the Kitchen and it was a school night, he would knock him out and take him home himself.

He’s already on the Queens side of the bridge, he’s tired, and he managed to keep track of his backpack the whole night.

You know.

For _once._

He’s gotten pretty good at quick changes over the years, and at not caring who sees him do it, but he’s not confident or stupid enough to try changing in an alley.

Doesn’t matter how dark and empty it is.

Peter’s never going to chance it.

It’s easier to change in the bolt holes Bucky set up all over the city instead and parkour the way home across the rooftops and then to the ground floor.

There’s only one problem with this, besides the chance of falling without the cover of Spider-man to save him.

The fire escape across from his window is in an alley, like all fire escapes are.

And that means he has to go into this alley, climb the fire escape, and then jump across the gap and grab onto the hand holds he stuck into the brick above his window.

He does this almost every night.

It’s a bit of a pattern.

And having a pattern is where he fucks up.

Because while he does go out and night and come back with split knuckles and bruises, you can only tell that from up close.

And somebody scouting to rob folks doesn’t get close.

They don’t see his bloody hands and purple jaw.

They see small stature, slim limbs, soft face, jeans with holes and a patched backpack.

They see a target.

So when Peter reaches the alley between his apartment building and the next, there’s someone waiting for him.

And the thing about his Sense is that it warns him that something bad is _going_ to happen, but not who’s going to do it.

It tracks up his spine like ants, hovers over his head like a cloud, breathes down his neck like a vulture, but it’s not until he steps off the sidewalk that the ice pick stabs down into his brain and screams _MOVE._

There’s no time to think.

Only time to do.

To slip under a reaching arm, to spin and put his back to the dead end, to raise his hands just like Matt taught him.

It’s one thing not to defend himself at school.

It’s entirely another to think about letting himself be robbed.

Even when a gun is leveled at his chest.

There’s surprise on the gun-guy’s face, maybe from the dodging, maybe from the raised fists, maybe from the sureness of his expression.

Maybe from the lack of fear in the face of a gun.

The ants are running down his spine again.

Something feels off.

Gun Guy takes a step forward.

Peter doesn’t move.

The vulture’s breath pools around his neck.

Something’s off, something’s _wrong._

Not just the buzz in his bones from the Chitauri tech.

Something else.

Something to be worried about.

Gun Guy’s hand is shaking.

His heart beat isn’t.

Heart beat.

_Heart beat._

The cloud over his head makes his ears pop.

Peter twists and moves to knock the pistol out of Gun Guy’s hands.

His fingers crunch down on the metal maybe too tight as he rips it away and then–

One man.

_Two heart beats._

The ice picks stab down right as he _moves–_

Time slows down.

Not really.

Maybe a little.

At least it feels like it, because one moment he’s moving away and the next there’s a burning hole in his side.

_B a n g b a n g._

His tongue tastes like gunpowder.

The air smells like smoke.

He hasn’t been hit in a while.

That Chitauri stuff must’ve really rattled his head because he isn’t–

He’s usually more aware.

More _careful._

And now he’s gone and gotten shot out of the suit.

One in the side.

The other clipping his arm.

Peter has a healing factor.

He’ll be fine.

Gun Guy is shaking.

Staring at the slightly dented gun on the ground, and then back towards the second guy who’d been waiting with his back to the alley, eyes wide.

Maybe they hadn’t planned on actually shooting him.

It doesn’t matter.

It happened, and because it was Peter they hurt, he can’t even call it in.

No hospitals.

And now he has to get the second gun before they can do anymore damage.

It sucks.

It _sucks._

Maybe his hoodie will help clot the bleeding, but if he doesn’t take wrap this up soon he’s _screwed–_

There’s a click as a window opens.

They all look up–

_MJ leans out, and her eyes widen–_

_Peter lunges forward and crushes the second gun in his hand–_

_Gun Guy One scrambles away–_

_Gun Guy Two shoves him away to run–_

_MJ disappears back into the window–_

_Peter’s back hits the brick–_

The Gun Guys are running.

There’s a hole in his side.

Near where the Hand got him back when he met Luke Cage and Miss Jones and Danny.

MJ _saw._

He’s screwed.

Absolutely and royally.

Ned leans out of the window, MJ in tow, shining down a flashlight.

It burns right into his eyes and he can’t help but hiss and flinch back.

Ned inhales sharply in time and MJ swears.

He’s sure they can see the blood.

He’s sure.

This is bad.

This is horrible.

This is the worst thing that could’ve happened.

Peter takes a deep breath and tries to wheeze past the lava dripping through the hole in his body.

“Please don’t tell May.”


	2. And Let There Be Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Knowing is dangerous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit heavy, fair warning. A little bit of angst before we get back to the regularly scheduled program

MJ looks like she might kill him if he wasn’t bleeding.

She might do it regardless, actually.

Peter had told them where his first aid kit was, and how to get down from the window, after a brief almost screaming match about why they should tell May because she was a nurse, and him saying no.

Doing first aid in an alley isn’t optimal, but he doesn’t have a lot of options.

He’s not on the island, and he’s not in Hell’s Kitchen.

“I need you to call this number.”

Ned takes his phone with wide eyes.

“W-what?”

Peter presses the pad into his stomach, and grits his teeth, because at the very least it was almost through and through, and should be easy to cut out.

He can feel it, cold and hard near his bones.

Which sucks.

But.

Really, everything about this sucks.

“I need you to call this number,” Peter repeats. “Bloody fingers. I need both hands on this.”

  
“Who is it?” MJ asks with barely any emotion at all.

He purses his lips.

“JB. Call him. Speaker.”

  
Ned’s hands are shaking as he presses the call button.

It rings three times, and the city is starting to feel far away.

His arm is bleeding just a little, but his stomach is bleeding a lot.

Maybe as much as a head wound, but he’s not sure.

The receiver on his phone crackles like feedback and then there’s a voice.

It’s not Bucky.

“Hello?”

Peter closes his eyes.

“Hi, Captain Rogers. Can I talk to JB?”

There’s a long pause which he really doesn’t have time for, but there’s still _not a lot he can do._

“… Hey, Queens. He’s yelling at the plants Sam bought right now. Is something wrong?”

MJ and Ned look between him and the phone very quickly.

He doesn’t really have time for that either.

Peter takes another deep breath.

“I need to borrow your medical professional and also a place to crash for at least an hour or two afterwards to start healing.”

“… ah.” Captain Rogers says. “Where are you?”

“Queens, fifteenth street.”

There’s the sound of keys jangling together.

“Any friendlies?”

“Two.”

He can hear muffled shouting over the receiver, and then Captain Rogers’ voice comes back.

“Injuries?”

“Bullet to the stomach.”

The reminder makes Ned flinch.

“Ouc– _Bucky oh my God.”_

There’s a thud like the phone was dropped before Bucky’s voice nearly shouts, “You got shot _again?”_ and then another thud.

MJ mouths, _“he knows,”_ like an accusation.

Like barbed wire and poisoned whips.

She's never going to let him live this down.

Even if she leaves, he's sure that she'll remind him every single day for the rest of his life.

Captain Rogers sighs.

“He took the keys.”

Peter nods dully.

“Sounds like him.”

“He gonna be able to find you?” Captain Rogers asks, but it sounds more rhetorical than anything.

Peter grits his teeth as a pulse runs through his stomach. “If you have his phone, he probably took yours."

He hates bullet wounds.

There's a hum.

"So he did," Captain Rogers mutters. "You wanna stay on the line or do you think you'll be okay until he gets there?"

Peter closes his eyes and listens to MJ and Ned's heartbeats.

"I'll be fine, Captain Rogers." He hears himself say. "I've got friendlies with me."

There's a final long pause.

"Okay. Call back if anything changes."

Peter nods again.

"I will. Thanks."

The line goes dead with a crackle of static and a cut off sigh.

He can hear the entire city.

The cars and the lights and the people.

But the alley feels like a dead space in a world of life.

Like there’s nothing in it at all but words unsaid.

Like there’s only Ned and MJ’s eyes baring down on him and the blood leaking through the gauze.

“Captain America,” MJ says softly. “Was just on that phone.”

“And he knew who you were,” Ned adds in a whisper. “Knew _exactly_ who you were.”

“And,” MJ leans forward, “Bucky Barnes wasn’t surprised about you being shot.”

 _“And,”_ Ned moves closer, “They’re both helping you, just because you asked. Not even thinking about it.”

Peter scrunches his eyes even tighter.

“Yeah,” he rasps.

MJ’s hand suddenly grips his shoulder like a vice.

“How do you know them?”

He takes a deep breath.

“I met him in Brooklyn.”

The air whistles as Ned pushes MJ’s hand off his shoulder and he hisses, _“Don’t do that,”_ before asking, “Captain America or–”

“Bucky,” Peter interrupts with barely any air in his lungs. “I met Bucky in Brooklyn. Was backed into a corner. He helped me an’ I– I bought him a sandwich.”

Ned’s heartbeat flutters.

“You– you bought him a sandwich?”

A laugh crawls its way out his throat, small and crackling and kind of awful.

“He looked hungry.”

MJ sighs, heavy and loud.

“Jesus, Parker.”

Ah.

Parker.

He’s Parker now.

Not Peter.

“And Captain America?” She asks next.

His fingers are starting to stick together from the blood.

“I met him in Germany.”

Ned chokes, and MJ– Michelle stops breathing.

Michelle because MJ is only for friends.

“G– you met him in _Germany?”_ Ned wheezes, and then he tugs at one of Peter’s hands.

He lets it go, and there’s a crack of plastic before cold water pours over his fingers.

Peter opens his eyes.

Ned is looking at his hand and not his face, brows furrowed and knuckles white around the water bottle in his grip.

The blood is dripping down onto the cement.

Michelle doesn’t have any expression on her face at all.

He can’t look at her.

“I met him in Germany,” Peter repeats numbly. “Because I broke into Stark Tower a day after the Vienna bombin'.”

Ned’s hold on his hand becomes painful for one brief second.

Michelle’s face goes a little lax.

He closes his eyes again, because he’s a coward and he can’t look at them.

He can’t.

“To do _what?”_ Michelle hisses.

He swallows past the desert in his throat.

“Convince 'im that Bucky didn’ have anythin' to do with the bombin'.”

Ned lets go of his hand and he wipes it on his jeans.

“And he took me t' Germany a day after that.”

Michelle grabs his shoulder again, softer this time.

“An' they talked instead'a fightin' and we left t' go find the guy respons'ble.”

Ned brackets him in on his other side, looping an arm through his crooked elbow.

“An' we went to Siberia where Zemo was waitin', an' we– we couldn’ talk instead of fightin' there.”

The air feels cold in his lungs, and it can’t be from his breathing, from his asthma, because he doesn’t have that anymore.

“An' Mr. Stark would’ve killed Bucky if I hadn't ripped his arc reactor out.”

Ned breathes in sharp enough to cut glass.

“An' T’Challa took 'em away.”

He leans his head back against the brick.

"That's how I met Captain America."

Michelle's hand tightens and the other one finds his jaw as she turns his head to face her.

"Open your eyes, Parker."

He does.

What else is he supposed to do?

Michelle stares him dead in the face, eyes so dark and heavy like the cloudy sky.

"How did you rip out the arc reactor?" She asks in a bare whisper, something unknowable in the edge of her tone.

He smiles, because it's all he has.

He knew this was going to happen eventually, but not–

Not like this.

Never like this.

Not with blood on his jacket and his hands.

Not with them climbing out of a window to reach him.

Not a first aid kit split open in front of their legs.

Not this.

Not any of this.

And he says, "I'm Spider-man."

And grabs the half crushed gun barely hidden under a box next to Michelle’s leg.

And he crumples it like wet paper in his fist.

“See?” He says helplessly.

There’s the sound of boots hitting cement.

Plates clicking together.

Hair swishing.

Peter looks up.

Bucky looks down, and holds out a hand.

His hair is tied back today, and his nails are pink.

“Hey, kid. Rough day?”

Ned’s eyes are wide.

Michelle’s hand has gone a little slack on his jaw where she’d turned his head.

“’m tired,” crawls out of his throat. “An’ diggin’ out this bullet is gonna _suck.”_

Bucky smiles with his eyes and his shoulders and his mouth.

“These Ned and Michelle?” He asks with a jerk of his head.

Peter holds out a hand, and JB grabs it to pull him up.

It makes his side hurt, but he’s had worse.

He exhales into Bucky’s arm and breathes, “Yeah,” past the pulsing.

“You–” Ned chokes on his own words. “You know who we are?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow and hooks his other arm around Peter’s knees to lift him up.

“‘Course I do. He talks about you all the time.” He jostles Peter a little bit as he gets a better hold. “They comin’ with or not?”

He looks over to them.

Michelle’s face is a little paler than normal but still blank, and Ned’s eyes are wide, his knuckles white.

It’s a horrible thing, but he wants to leave them.

He wants to run away.

He doesn’t want them to see his face or watch him crumble and bleed.

He doesn’t want to tell them anything else.

Peter is tired.

Tired and washed out and wrung dry by a half conversation.

Numb by barely any words at all.

Empty and hollow.

He can’t though.

He can’t leave them.

Not after everything he’s put them through.

It wouldn’t be fair.

And he can’t stomach not being fair,

Not this time.

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles. “Yeah, they’re coming with.”

Bucky looks at him for one long moment.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispers after a moment.

He can’t find the energy to do more than whisper back,

“I know.”

———

The Falcon doesn’t even look surprised or mad or disappointed when he opens the door.

He just looks resigned.

Tired.

Peter didn’t think he would look tired.

He didn’t really think he would look like any of those other things either, but he really, really didn’t think he would look so tired.

There is _some_ surprise, though, when Ned and Michelle solemnly follow Bucky through the doorway.

“Friendlies.” Bucky says by way of explanation before setting him down on the plastic covered couch. “Shirt and jacket.”

Captain Rogers emerges in the corner of his eye from the stairs that disappear into the other part of the house, a duffle bag in his hands.

The Falcon frowns at it before his expression suddenly clears, and then he grimaces.

Peter fumbles with the zipper on his hoodie.

He doesn’t like that grimace.

JB snaps his fingers and Peter looks over at the sound.

“Super Soldier anesthetic.” He says quickly. “How sealed up is that wound?”

Ned’s knuckles go even whiter from where he’s curled up with Michelle in a chair dead across from the couch.

Peter scowls at the hole in his jacket before handing it over and working on the buttons for his shirt.

Thank god for flannels and not having to tug it over his head.

“I don’t think it’s bleeding anymore.” He says, and ignores the hiss Michelle makes – probably – at the sight of his burns.

They’re cut off by his binder, but it’s hard to miss the twist of it that grows from underneath the fabric like flowers between sidewalk slabs, not to mention his elbows.

It’s not pretty.

Bucky’s face goes a little cold at the sight of them, the Falcon purses his lips, and Captain Rogers gets a look like he wants to hit something.

They’re always the first thing people see, the next ones being the white-pink puckered flesh of his old bullet wound, the fresh scar cutting across the top of his left forearm, and the thin slash across his side, currently covered by the gauze.

It’s a painful reminder that Peter hasn’t always had a healing factor, that he hasn’t won every fight he’s ever been in, that there’s people out there that will always be stronger than him.

It’s also a reminder that he got out alive.

His burns are a reminder that he failed.

His arm is a reminder that the second time around he _won._

“ _‘I don’t think it’s bleeding anymore’_ isn’t exactly good in your case.” The Falcon mutters. “If the entry wound’s sealed up too much then that means we either have to dig in and cut it back open, which I don’t recommend, or we can try to find it from the other side and cut a new hole, which I also don’t recommend. It’s your call though, kid.”

Peter frowns and starts unwrapping the gauze.

“It would probably be best to follow the entry wound,” he says slowly. “Even if it’s mostly sealed. It still gives you the right starting place.”

The Falcon grimaces again.

“This is _not_ gonna be fun, for you or for me.” He warns, and then gestures for Captain Rogers to bring the duffle bag over.

It rattles when the Falcon shakes it around and digs through whatever’s in it.

He holds out a white bottle with the SI logo on it, and gives that a shake too. “Barnes says your healing factor is faster than his and Steve’s, but I don’t wanna mess you up anymore than I’m about to right now, so I want you to only take one of these pain killers and tell me when they start wearing off, alright?”

Peter takes it hesitantly. 

“You know I’ve never had painkillers for this kind of thing before? Not… strong ones like this, anyway.” 

The Falcon makes a complicated face.

“Barnes told me a little bit about that. This should be strong enough to at least numb you out. It’ll be necessary if this thing splintered.” He gestures to Peter’s side. “Let’s hope it didn’t though, because otherwise we might have to take you to Stark’s place, and I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with him right now.”

Peter rolls the bottle around in his hands for a moment before shaking out one capsule and throwing it back with some water.

“I don’t think it splintered. Doesn’t feel like it anyway.”

“Cross your fingers you’re right.” The Falcon says. “I’m gonna give that a minute to set in, alright? Your metabolism should make quick work of it.”

Peter follows him with his eyes until he disappears into the kitchen with Captain Rogers.

Bucky watches them go too.

"Do you… always do this?" Ned suddenly asks.

His voice is hesitant.

Careful.

Worried.

Bucky looks over at him and Michelle.

"What do you mean?"

Michelle shares a glance with Ned.

It's a kind of familiar glance, but he's not sure why.

Where's he seen it before?

"Like, does Parker always go here to get his wounds treated." She clarifies.

Peter switches his gaze from the wall between him and the kitchen over to Ned and Michelle instead.

"No. I us'lly go to Claire."

"Claire?" Michelle asks.

"Temple."

"Oh," Captain Rogers calls from the kitchen. "The Night Nurse."

Peter twitches over at the sound. “S’that what they call her?”

“Claire Temple?” Michelle asks again. “Like, the one that used to work with your aunt at MetroGen?”

Peter tilts his head into her direction.

“Mhmm.

“The one that was fired?”

“Mhmm.”

“Because of the cover up?”

Peter blinks hazily.

“You ‘member that?”

Something in Michelle’s face goes fuzzy before smoothing back over.

“Course I remember.” She says. “I remember when you say weird shit.”

He tries to nod and everything goes a little static-y.

“Ah. M’kay.”  
“Hey, Wilson?” Bucky’s voice says from far away. “He’s ready now. Steve, you take the kids.”

The Falcon’s face wobbles in his vision.

When did everything get so far away?

When did everything get so _quiet?_

It’s like everything in the world’s faded to dull.

Someone clicks their tongue.

He looks over.

Bucky’s outline is blurry.

“Jus’ pay attention to me, alright? If you get tired, just go to sleep. Don’ fight it.”

Peter blinks, and the world goes soft and doesn’t clear up.

His side feels weird.

He _is_ tired.

So tired.

It hits him.

In a dull way.

He knows where he's seen that glance before.

The one between Ned and Michelle.

It was Karen and Foggy.

It was Karen and Foggy whenever they saw Daredevil bleed himself dry.

———

Once upon a time Peter thought he was maybe almost good.

He helped the beat up kids and worn down soldiers.

The boy with sunflower headphones and the man with an ancient metal arm.

The girl with a fake varsity jacket and the man with the round, red glasses.

He took bullets and knives, he jumped across buildings and divides, he pushed himself to the limit because he saw the wrong and the disease.

Matt never wanted him to end up like he did.

He never wanted him to fight like he did.

It was always supposed to just be lessons.

Always supposed to just be plants with the names of saints and better-than-subpar Thai food.

There were never supposed to be bandannas and suits and spider-bites.

There was never supposed to be Germany and Siberia and Midland Circle.

There was never supposed to be blood on his teeth and lies in his mouth.

_Ben and Matt weren’t supposed to be dead._

Him and Foggy and Karen weren’t supposed to be grieving.

Him and May weren’t supposed to be the last Parkers.

There were a lot of _‘never-supposed-to-be’_ s.

Matt’s life had been like that too.

So was Mr. Stark’s, he figured, and Captain Rogers and Mr. Castle.

Almost everyone Peter knew had a life of ‘ _never-supposed-to-be’_ s.

Luke Cage was never supposed to be framed and sent to that prison.

Bucky was never supposed to be in the hands of HYDRA.

T’Challa’s father was never supposed to be killed.

_Peter was never supposed to be a liar._

The lie was never supposed to exist.

The lie was never supposed to go on for so long.

It was never supposed to consume him.

It was never supposed to _be_ him.

But it felt like with every deception, every twist of the truth, every _blatant falsehood,_ he gave a little bit more of himself away until every single part of him was an exercise in secrecy.

Peter didn’t want to lie.

Telling himself that felt like a lie too, but it had to be true.

Because he _wanted_ to tell the truth.

He wanted it to fall apart, even as he held everything close to his chest.

He didn’t want to stumble or shatter or break into stardust.

He just wanted them to _know._

He wanted to be able to tell them.

But he was too much of a coward to say a word.

He was too scared to change.

He was too afraid of the ‘ _what might happen’_ s.

He always had been.

He’d been lying for so long he wasn’t sure how to do anything else.

He could tell Wade, and he could tell Bucky, but he couldn’t tell May or Ned or Michelle.

Wade didn’t have any preconception of what Peter was supposed to be, of how he was supposed to act and what he was supposed to know.

He took him at face value.

He took in every part of his chipped armor and offered to take his patrol route instead of trying to pry him open.

Bucky had always been a holder of his secrets.

He was probably part of the reason Peter hadn’t gone mad.

He was someone else to talk to, someone to hide with, someone to learn from.

Matt taught him his way of fighting, how to push past his limits, but Bucky had taught him how to fight like the enemy.

Between braids and nail polish and thread Bucky taught him what sound a silenced Mosin-Nagant made, what a disguised operative looked like, what Russian made him sound proper and what made him sound like a criminal.

It wasn’t often, only lessons between trips, but it was something.

It was a connection.

It was a kind of safety.

He could tell Bucky what he couldn’t tell Ned or Michelle or May or _Ben._

Bucky could hold his secrets because no one would think to ask him about them.

He could take care of himself.

If Peter messed up, Bucky wouldn’t be in any more danger than he was just by existing.

May would though.

May and Ned and Michelle would be in danger.

There might be an Iron Man suit between May and Hammerhead, but Mr. Stark still couldn’t save everyone.

There would always be the chance of failure, of bad luck, of people smarter than one of the smartest people in the world.

Anyone that had ever talked to Peter was a potential target.

Miss Claire had Luke Cage and Colleen could take care of herself, and Mr. Castle looked out for Karen and no one would _ever_ touch Foggy because of what he did for vigilantes, but Peter didn’t have that for his friends and his family.

No one was scared of Spider-man and no one would _be_ scared of the Antichrist if he was more than a shadow with a face, but if they knew him, if they unmasked him, if they got his name and his skin and his heart? 

He’d made a lot of people angry.

He’d tossed a lot of people to the police.

He’d gotten himself a whole lot of enemies.

Peter had been playing with fire in his game of justice, in his play of lies.

But there was a saying for a reason.

Don’t play with fire.

_You get burned._

———

Peter wakes with a sluggish sort of start.

Like his mind knows he’s awake but his body doesn’t.

New York is screaming, but right now, it's a quiet din.

It's soft.

It's white noise.

Peter hasn't been this tired in a long time.

In a forever and a half. 

“Hey there, kid.”

He blinks.

It’s harder than it should be, but the lights around him are soft except for a halo of light just out of his vision and towards the floor.

The Falcon is wearing gloves and a mask.

His gloves are red around the fingers.

“That hit you pretty hard, didn’t it?”

Peter nodded as slowly as he could, but it still made his head spin.

“Blood loss.” He croaked. “Time?”

“You were only out for about ten minutes.” Bucky’s voice reports from his right. “You prob’ly wouldn’t’ve passed out if you’d eaten first and hadn’t been bleedin’ for so long.”

Sounds about right.

“Sitrep?”

“No shrapnel,” the Falcon says with relief, and holds a bloodied piece of metal up to his eye level with really long tweezers. “See? I had a cut you open a bit, and it did try to heal ‘round these guys here, but I managed to dig it out and it’s sealin’ up again. I’m gonna put some stitches in this that you should be able to pull out in about two hours.”

Peter frowns.

“Tha’s a waste of stitches.”

The Falcon frowns back.

“They’re my stitches and I can use them on as many of you superpowered weirdos as I want, got that?”

Peter opens his mouth to argue, and then clicks it shut when Bucky says, “Don’t bother.”

 _“Thank you.”_ The Falcon mutters as he drops the bullet in a little tin.

The world fades in and out for another long moment, spots and lights and stars on his eyelids, and when he blinks back to the world again, the Falcon is gone and Bucky is in his place.

“You’re gonna hav’ta talk to them, ya know.” He whispers.

Peter swallows and blinks again.

The world is starting to snap back into clarity, and his side is starting to feel less numb and more _ow._

“I know.”

“But are you gonna to _do it?”_

Peter nods after a moment, shaky and stiff.

Bucky’s eyes go soft and he ruffles his hair.

“It’ll be okay, Солнышко.” He says gently. “It’ll work out. Me and Stevie are okay, ain’t we? And we’re a lot more messed up than you. Hell, you can always talk to Sam if you need help.”

Peter smiles, just a little.

“I guess so.”

Bucky smiles too.

“That’s what I thought.”

Then he puts his hands on his knees and stands up with several _pops._

“You’re gettin’ old, JB.”

Bucky tosses his ponytail over his shoulder.

“I’m old as hell already. Any older an’ I’ll be _dust,_ _”_ he sighs. “Aight, Wilson? Rogers? You can bring the kids in. He’s back on Earth again.”

The buzz from the kitchen dies.

Captain Rogers is the first to step back into the living room.

“Your heartbeat is heavy.” He says, and Bucky snorts.

“Maybe not all the way back.”

The Falcon is next, and then–

And then Ned and Michelle.

“You can hear it?” Captain Rogers asks, and instead of sounding weirded out he sounds curious. 

Peter dazedly taps his ear.

“I got good ears. Could hear Lang’s suit on your shield, an’ Mr. Wilson’s wing pack and Bucky’s arm in the airport.” He tilts his head over the back of the couch. “If I listen hard enough I can prob’ly find Clint in Bed Stuy. Prob’ly.”

 _“‘Prob’ly’_ he says.” Bucky says dryly. “You get your brain back in order. Imma see if I can find the go bag you stashed, get you some new clothes.”

The Falcon almost chokes.

“He has a go bag? _Here?”_

“He’s got like, four or six or like, I dunno, eight? Stashed around the island and here. Always be prepared. Go scouts.” Bucky says with a limp salute.

Captain Rogers smiles at that.

“You were never a scout.”

“Psshh. Say’s you.” Bucky smiles back. “Anyway, I dunno where I put the thing. Might be in your room, might be in Wilson’s, might be in mine, I ain’t got a clue.”

The Falcon clicks his tongue but starts up the stairs anyway.

“What’d I say about puttin’ shit in my room?”

Bucky’s smile turned sharp.

“Not ta, doll.”

Peter can the Falcon’s heart jump and Captain Rogers sighs.

He does a half turn to them as he hits the first step.

“I’ll try to make sure this doesn’t take an age an’ a half, alright? This shouldn’t take too long.”

Peter snorts.

“Bucky likes to make a production outta things if he’s got the time.”

Captain Rogers makes a face.

“He sure does,” he mutters. “Still. We’ll try to find that bag quick, so sit tight.”

And then he’s gone, taking the stairs two at a time.

When Peter turns to look, Ned is still hovering in the doorway to the kitchen, but Michelle’s moved closer, staring at something.

He follows her gaze.

The something is his blood on the plastic over the couch.

It’s on his jeans too, and the place it came from is covered up by a clean white dressing over the hole in his stomach, trapped in place with gauze.

It’s not necessarily a new sight for him.

He’s done this before, with far more permanent results than stitches he’ll be pulling out in two hours.

But Michelle and Ned have probably never seen something like this before.

Especially never on him.

“It doesn’t really hurt.” He says, and it’s mostly true. 

It’s pretty easily ignorable, even if it is still _there._

More uncomfortable than painful.

Ned flinches anyway.

“How can you say that?” He asks, and his voice sounds wobbly. “You got _shot_ less than an _hour_ ago.”

Peter shrugs and smiles, because what else can he do?

“I’ve gotten shot before. You know that.” He reminds him. “It could’ve been worse. It missed everything important.”

Ned purses his lips.

“Would you have lied about it?”

Peter’s heart freezes.

“What?”

Michelle finally looks away from the blood.

“Would you have lied about it?” She repeats. “If we weren’t there. Would you have lied.”

Peter swallows past the closing of his throat.

It hurts.

“Probably.” He breaths, and it burns all the way into his lungs.

Michelle leans forward and tilts her head.

“Why?”

Peter licks his lips and tries to think past the answer of _Because that’s what I always do._

“Because why would I tell my best friends I’ve just been shot when it’s going to be gone before tomorrow anyway?” He responds slowly. “How do you explain that? That you heal faster than Captain America?”

Michelle’s face goes flat.

“By using your _words,_ Parker. Instead of bottling it up your angst like some distilled Harry Potter potions shit.”

Peter scowls.

“Knowing is dangerous.”

 _“Knowing_ is _power.”_

“Knowing is involvement!”

“Knowing is being prepared!” Michelle snarls.

“Knowing is ending up dead!” Peter howls back.

Michelle bares her teeth.

“And is that what happened to Matt Murdock?”

The world stops moving.

Everything leeches out gray.

Ned’s hands fly over his mouth.

Michelle’s eyes widen almost a fraction as she seems to realize what she said.

Peter can barely process any of it.

And then suddenly he’s moving and standing and _in Michelle’s space–_

“YES!” He almost screams. “Matt knew and got involved and DIED!”

Michelle swallows hard as his chest heaves and the air smells like–

Like copper.

He opens his fists.

There’s cuts on his palms.

Again.

He sits back down.

He’s tired.

“Matt’s dead. He made his choice.” Peter says to the floor. “Telling the truth doesn’t end well. For anyone.”

There’s footsteps.

And then Ned is sitting at his feet.

“We’re not Mr. Murdock.” He tells him softly and takes his bleeding hands.

They’re already sealing up.

“I know that,” Peter answers. “But Matt– I mean–”

“You don’t have to tell us.” Ned interrupts. “You really don’t. Not if you don’t want to.”

There’s a thunk, and Michelle sits down at Peter’s feet too.

“I’m sorry for pushing.” She says softly.

Peter closes his eyes.

“Don’t be.”

He takes one of his hands back and rubs at his eye with the heel.

“Don’t be.”

He takes a deep breath.

The air feels so cold in his lungs.

“I never wanted to lie.” He whispers.

“We know.” Ned says gently.

“You guys are my best friends.”

“We know.” Ned says again.

“And I just– I thought if you knew I would lose that. I would lose you.” Peter croaks. “It– it never ends well. The truth is so– it’s so dangerous.”

Michelle takes the hand Ned isn’t holding and threads their fingers together.

“Well that’s stupid.” She says bluntly, and Ned hisses, _“MJ.”_

Michelle makes a face.

“It is!” She insists. “It’s stupid.”

Peter doesn’t understand.

“Don’t you get it?” Michelle asks.

No.

No he doesn’t.

And then…

She smiles at him.

“You loser. 

“We’re not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did some art while procrastinating this chapter! Act related and otherwise.  
> If you're interested in that you can head over to the [post ](https://cassettemoon.tumblr.com/post/616803181636239360/hello-hello-hello-another-acv-art-dump-except)  
> tiny edit: i fixed some of the formatting! i have literally no idea why it was weird? but it's fixed now!


	3. Knowing Good and Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Spider's only been around since last winter. My scars are almost two years old, dude. You can do the math."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me about a month to get out for a variety of reasons. I got obsessed with transformers, I started co-writing a big project, my dog died. It's been a rollercoaster of a couple weeks, guys.  
> But! Chapter three is out NOW and can I just say? All of you guys leaving comments are goddamn delights and I love y'all.

Sometimes he forgets how to talk.

When the more complicated things come up, the words dry and crack like a desert in his throat.

It’s easy to say things like “I was bit by a spider” and “I heal really fast” and “Yeah I was there when Delmar’s got destroyed.”

But when Ned looks at him and says, “Could you have died?” he loses all the words that were sitting on his tongue.

He forgets how to talk.

Or he just…

Doesn't know what he's supposed to say.

What he's supposed to do.

Texting is easier, sometimes, but not always.

He can think his words through but he still has to  _ find them. _

He still has to find a way to thank Michelle for the note she left for May.

He still has to find a way to explain exactly why he lied until it was all he knew.

He still has to find a way to tell them why the thought of them knowing is the best thing in the world while also making him feel like he's drowning under the weight of it all.

It's like… 

It's like reality's not…  _ reality. _

Like a far off dream.

A distant surface far above the ocean floor.

Something he could never, ever possibly hope to reach.

Except it's not.

Except it's  _ real.  _

It's real, and it's happening to him,  _ has happened to him,  _ and he still doesn't understand how he isn't stardust on the concrete of an alleyway covered in his blood.

Peter was never prepared for a favorable outcome, and especially not one so soon.

He doesn't have time to explain everything, to plot it all out for them to understand.

That Chitauri tech is  _ dangerous  _ and he can't let it be on the streets anymore.

He can't.

This isn't like with Hammerhead.

The cops knew that Hammerhead existed, knew his general MO and how he liked to run things.

Nobody knows anything about the Chitauri tech.

Not a  _ soul. _

Not even the people buying.

He doesn't have time to wait.

So even though he feels sore and worn out, he still gets up in the morning, still gets dressed, wounds and clothes alike, still moves the stones on Ben and Matt's shrines, and still gets on the A train to go to school.

He hates going to school with gunshots,  _ especially  _ ones that he isn't able to doctor himself.

_ Ugh. _

Even if it’s mostly healed, the phantom of it lingers.

That’s always the hardest part of having a healing factor.

You're whole in body but the mind takes a little bit longer to catch up.

Ned doesn’t know that though.

Ned doesn’t know that and pauses halfway through a hushed, “Can you spit venom?” when he sees Peter wince in the next seat over and assumes the worst.

“Are you sure you’re fine?”

And Peter… sighs.

Because he gets it.

He does.

He used to do this to Matt all the time.

But Peter’s not Matt.

He’s stronger and he heals faster and he can do so much more Matt could.

Matt had been and would always be the better fighter, with better senses and better control, but Matt couldn’t do what Peter could.

He hadn’t been able to run up walls or lift metric tonnes.

He hadn't been able to sense danger or heal in hours instead of days.

Matt hadn’t been able to do what Peter did.

And Peter wasn’t able to do what Matt had.

Matt wasn’t Peter.

_ Peter wasn’t Matt. _

“I’m okay, Ned. I’ve gone to school with worse before, and that was without a healing factor,” he says quietly when Cobbwell isn’t looking. “I’ll be alright. It’s just a little sore.”

Ned blanches.

_ “Worse?”  _ He hisses frantically.

“The burns, Ned? The  _ burns?" _

Actually, that might’ve been the wrong thing to say.

That whole sequence.

Probably bad.

Because Ned is starting to look a  _ little bit  _ horrified.

"You got those without–" Ned pauses abruptly and then lowers his rising voice. "You got those without a  _ healing factor?" _

His skin itches just thinking about it.

Puckers and digs and  _ burns. _

"I've had them for years now." He replies in a choked sort of voice, "They basically ended my career, Ned."

And they had.

They'd crushed the Antichrist.

They'd killed Ben.

Ned goes even whiter.

"What do you mean?" He whispers.

Peter bares his teeth in a smile that feels more like a grimace.

"Spider's only been around since last winter. My scars are almost two years old, dude. You can do the math."

And then the lights go off and Mr. Cobbwell starts talking about complex chemicals, and there’s no more time to speak.

Ned looks at Peter one more time before moving to face the projector.

It doesn’t stop him from catching the apprehension in his eyes.

It doesn’t stop him from catching the hurt.

It stings.

But it’s… it’s not a new sight.

It hasn’t been for a long time.

Because what would Peter be without his secrets?

———

They have PE with Michelle, and it’s the first time he’s seen her since Bucky dropped her off at her apartment.

She’s never looked as stung as Ned has from the corner of his eyes, but she’d also pushed him for information the most, so he isn’t sure what seeing her is going to be like.

He doesn’t know if she’s going to have questions and hurt like Ned.

He doesn’t know if she’s not going to have anything at all.

Because she said they weren’t going anywhere but… 

He lied for a long time.

He hurt them.

How can he know she’s telling the truth?

That she didn’t change her mind?

Peter doesn't know what he's expecting, but it's not for her to just… spare a look from  _ The Human Bondage _ to squint at him, give him a once over, and then go back to her book.

Pretty much exactly like she always has.

_ Like she always has. _

It hits kind of like a knife in the back.

"Have you been checking more for injuries this whole time?" Peter asks her whispered rush.

Michelle raises an eyebrow, but doesn't look up.

"Don't be ridiculous, Parker." She says before flipping her page. "I would never."

“But you just did.”

“I was only making sure you weren’t someone else standing in my space.” Michelle drawls.  “Only my friends are allowed to do that. If you were Flash, you’d be dead.”

Peter’s chest hurts.

It kind of always hurts when he gets upset, but this time it  _ really  _ hurts.

“We’re friends?” He asks softly in a wobbly sort of voice.

Michelle looks up sharply.

Like he’s an idiot.

Maybe he is.

“Of course we’re friends, you dumbass." She scowls, but it doesn’t feel… mean, somehow. “Now sit your loser ass down so I can go back to my book.”

He tries to make himself as small as possible next to her, and Ned sits down on his other side.

"You're… not super mad?" He whispers as Coach Wilson starts the Captain America video.

Michelle looks up from her book completely to make a face at him.

"I knew what I signed up for when I decided to be friends with you." She hisses fiercely. "I made a choice with you Peter Parker. I can be mad at your stupidity as long as I want, but that doesn't stop you from being my best friend. Got that?"

It really is like drowning.

Drowning in the swell in his lungs, and his eyes, and his heart, drowning in the closing of his throat and tightness of his chest.

Drowning, drowning,  _ drowning. _

He's at school though.

And maybe if he wasn't, maybe if  _ this  _ wasn't, in the middle of his gym class on the bleachers with Captains Roger's voice droning on about something he doesn't care about, maybe he would let himself crack.

Maybe just a little.

But that's his reality, so he reels it all in, takes a deep breath that isn't a rattle, and taps Michel– MJ's shoulder with his own.

"I got it."

She eyes him for a long moment, scoffs with a tching sound, but goes back to her book anyway.

"You better."  She mumbles to the pages, and Peter's heart feels strangely like it's fracturing along the seams.

There's a hand on his shoulder.

He looks over at Ned.

His face is almost uncomfortably serious.

Ned's face is like how it was when Peter told him and MJ about his shrapnel.

Solemn and unfathomable.

"I am mad," he says plainly, and  Peter's heart really is splitting, just for different reasons this time . "But I've been mad for a long time. And you're being honest now. Just… don't lie again? Please?"

Peter swallows past the new closing of his throat.

"I'll do my best."

It's not a perfect answer.

It's not  _ yes  _ or  _ I promise. _

It's just  _ I'll try. _

Peter's a liar.

And it's hard to break old habits.

Ned's eyes go gentle, and they seem less dark and deep with the softening of the corners of his eyes.

"I'll take what I can get, man." He says softly and shoves Peter's shoulder with his own, just like Peter did to MJ.

It's not perfect.

It'll never  _ be  _ perfect.

Because Peter isn't perfect and he lies to keep people  _ safe. _

It's what he does.

But he's going to at least…  _ try. _

He's going to try.

He's going to  _ be better. _

"You know how weird it is to see someone's face on a gym TV when you had tea with them the night before?" Ned mutters bemusedly, and Peter snickers just a bit.

"Dude," he says with a small grin, "I had to not make fun of JB in class for  _ years." _

"Oh my  _ god." _

The video stops.

"Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us, Parker, Leeds?"

Everyone swivels to face then at the sound of Coach Wilson's voice.

Peter rests his elbows on his knees as casually as he can.

"Yeah," he says easily. "Isn't it weird that we watch these videos with Captain America telling us to stay in school and eat vegetables when like, you can just go up to Brooklyn and there's like a seventy five percent chance that you'll see him in some park cussing out Sergeant Barnes?"

Abe snickers.

Coach Wilson looks conflicted as he purses his lips.

"I mean," Sally starts suddenly. "He's not.  _ Wrong.  _ There's like, YouTube compilations of people zooming in on Captain America while he yells at Sergeant Barnes about things he should and shouldn't do."

And there were.

There  _ soooo  _ were, holy shit.

So funny.

Ten minute sets of Captain Rogers going  _ "Buck no"  _ about various things in various places.

JB knew what he was and wasn't supposed to do for the most part.

He just did it because Captain Rogers lost his mind over it.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Peter had either taught him well or he'd always been awful.

It was probably that he'd always been awful.

One of the kids in the front laugh-coughs into his hands.

Coach Wilson cuts his eyes at Peter.

"While that may be true," he says, "we're still obligated to show these videos. I know they're boring. But if you aren't going to pretend to pay attention at least be quiet about it. Let’s start on situps."

Peter grins sheepishly.

"Yessir."

Coach Wilson squints at him skeptically one more before blowing his whistle and turning away.

Ned gives him a fist bump.

———

“Well, what about the Spider-man?”

Ned goes stiff where he’s holding down Peter’s feet.

He starts getting a look on his face.

“No.” Peter says immediately. “Don’t even think about it. You say something and I’m  _ dead,  _ dude. Dead.”

Ned makes a  _ new  _ face.

Still bad.

But maybe holding off his impending doom.

“What d’you mean?” He asks, brows furrowing.

Peter takes a deep breath with his next situp.

“I work really, really hard, Ned.” He says softly. “I work really hard to keep the lines between me and the masks. I don’t need people connecting the mask to me when I go to a highschool full of civilians. It’s like asking for casualties.”

Most people aren’t like Mr. Castle.

They don’t care about collateral damage.

They don’t care about the people in the crossfire.

That’s why the Hand and Fisk were so scary.

They didn’t care.

They never would.

Karen carried a gun.

Colleen carried a sword.

Miss Claire carried a knife.

They were all begging for Foggy to carry  _ something. _

New York was dangerous, and infected, and scary.

It was so,  _ so _ dangerous.

He could’ve been dead a dozen times over by now.

Matt  _ is  _ dead.

He’s dead.

_ He’s dead. _

“Peter?”

He blinks up at the ceiling.

Ned is half leaning over his knees.

When did that happen?

“Are you okay?”

He blinks again.

Sits up.

Braces his hand behind him and digs the other through his hair.

“‘m fine.” Peter sighs. “I’m fine. Thinking.”

“You got really spacy.”

“I do that.” He mumbles. “Brain gets too loud. Too much processing.”

Ned frowns.

“Is it like, your ears and stuff? How far can you hear?”

Peter latches onto the excuse.

“Dunno. Couple blocks when I focus,” he says easily and folds his arms back to his chest to lean back. “Farther when I overload.  We were… working on it.”

Ned’s eyes are wide.

“Really? You can hear that far?…  _ We?” _

Peter sits up and stares right into Ned’s face.

“Not my secret to tell.” He says like an apology. “It would be like you telling your moms I’m… me.”

It wouldn’t be right.

He promised.

“Hey Peter!”

He flops backwards and stares  _ up. _

Liz has a hand over her face, but Betty is grinning.

“You know Tony Stark, right?”

“I mean I work for him, yeah. I thought that was obvious.” He says.

Betty’s grin falters for a second, and then returns full force.

“Do you know Spider-man?”

Peter makes a face past the seizing of his heart.

“Why would I know Spider-man?”

Betty raises an eyebrow at him.

“Uh, because you live in Queens? And because Spider-man’s like, been seen going to Stark Tower?”

“I don’t know him.” He lies with a shrug against the floor. “I’ve seen him around a couple times, and one time he was arguing with Mr. Stark, but I’ve never, you know, talked to him.”

It's  _ such _ a lie.

Peter talks to himself all the time.

_ All _ the time.

Wade does too, but for different reasons.

He thinks.

He’s pretty sure.

Wade can’t lie to him, not really.

So it’s easy to tell when he’s pretending to be fine and lying through his teeth.

He does it easily and all the time, but it’s not like Peter’s his best friend.

If Wade doesn’t want to tell him, he doesn’t have to.

Wade is, in a way, one of the easiest people to be friends with that he’s ever met, besides the fact that he knows when to push things and when to back off.

Because Peter can worry about him but he doesn’t have to be  _ scared  _ for him.

He doesn’t have to be terrified something will happen to him.

It’s kind of horrible to think that way, but Deadpool always gets back up.

There’ll be no buildings or C-4 with him.

No HYDRA or Hammerhead or Fisk.

Wade can take care of himself.

Peter’s friends?

Not so much.

He can’t have ties.

Not to Spider-man.

Not to the Antichrist.

_ Lie through your teeth and you’ll be just fine. _

“Arguing?” Betty asks loudly and excitedly.

Damn girl.

Could you have said it any louder?

Maybe all of New York didn’t hear you the first time?

Ah.

Wait.

Betty wants to be a reporter.

Hmm.

Mistake.

This whole conversation?

Mistake.

“Yeah? He argues with a lot of people.” Peter drawls in an attempt to de-escalate. “Dude’s abrasive to non-civilians.  There’s videos of him arguing with pigeons.”

So many.

So many videos.

Pigeons are great.

They are.

But sometimes they try to fight him for roosting spots and he Will Not Have It.

The Chrysler Building and Trinity Church are great view points and he  _ will  _ fight a pigeon for the right to sit there.

Betty flounders for a minute, and then changes tactics.

Peter can tell by the gleam in her eyes.

Man, if he wanted to be interrogated he would’ve talked to Karen.

“Well, what about other people?” She asks. “Don’t the other Avengers go to the Tower?”

Peter blinks slowly.

Everyone is paying attention to him, subtle as it is.

And the only thing that matters right now is not fucking up.

“I mean, I kinda know Sergeant Barnes but that’s just because we have the same lawyer.”

Betty freezes.

So does the half of his AcaDec team in the room.

Flash’s feet hit the mats when he drops from the climbing rope with a  _ slap. _

It’s a lie.

Her heartbeat stumbles.

She  _ knows  _ it’s a lie.

He knows she knows about the MoMA.   
Peter went to a school of smart people.

He was sure that they had figured out  _ something,  _ even if he didn’t know what.

And even though the team didn’t talk about it, Liz and Betty talked about everything.

He was pretty sure they’d been going to the same schools since they were kids, even if Liz was always two years ahead.

It was a miracle Betty hadn’t told the whole school.

She loved to gossip.

She loved to get the scoop.

_ She wanted to be a reporter. _

But the thing was, acknowledging that he’s lying would mean admitting to the MoMA in a crowd of people that would definitely, definitely talk.

And Peter didn’t think anyone would forgive her if she did.

He was banking on it.

Liz grabs Betty’s hand before she can open her mouth.

Her jaw flexs.

Peter stares placidly back.

His heartbeat is beating like a jackhammer in his throat, but if he just doesn’t think about it hard enough, he can win.

Peter can break later.

Right now all he has to do is  _ win. _ _   
_ It’s not a competition.

But it  _ is  _ a game.

_ Back them into a corner,  _ says Matt, says Bucky, says the Widow.

_ Back them into a corner, and it'll already be over. _

_ Back them into a corner, and you'll win in the wake of their panic. _

“The same lawyer?” Betty asks in a choked sort of voice, and it’s like the whole room starts breathing again.

“Sure.” Peter replies easily. “He worked my apartment building's eviction case pro bono back when I was in middle school.”

“Oh,” Betty breathes, and then doesn’t say anything else at all.

There’s a long beat of silence.

And then the bell cuts through the air like a knife and everyone scrambles to get to the locker rooms.

“Holy shit, dude.” Ned breathes as he helps him up. “That was. So intense?”

Peter exhales through his nose.

“Getting interrogated by an actual reporter is even worse," he whispers back. “But it always sucks more when you have something to hide.”

MJ sidles up to his right, book in hand.

“Congrats,” she hums to the pages. “You didn’t just reveal everything to a highschool gym class.”

Peter wrinkles his nose at her.

“Thanks for your confidence.”

She pats his shoulder.

“No problem, Parker.” MJ glances up at him, and then over his shoulder, before muttering, “Incoming.”

Peter turns.

Liz smiles at him apologetically.

“Hey, I’m… I’m sorry Betty asked you all those questions.” She says, guilt dripping off her tone. “Especially in front of everybody.”

Peter smiles back.

It’s a little bit fake, but he’s not sure what else to do.

“It’s okay.” He lies. “She was just curious.”

“Yeah well… I still feel bad. Would you… would you want to come to my party after school?” Liz asks hesitantly. “You’re always so busy that I didn’t think to invite you, but. If you wanted to go. I’m inviting you. It’ll be fun. And like, think of it as a way to get free food. Apology free food.”

Peter blinks.

Takes a moment to breathe.

“Sure,” he says. “I haven’t been to a party since Foggy won the trial.”

Liz gives him a crooked smile. 

“Cool. You can bring Ned and Michelle too. I mean,” Liz pauses, “I was expecting you to bring them? But like, I’m letting you know. Officially. They’re also invited.”

Peter snorts.

“Thanks, Liz.”

She gives him an awkward sort of thumbs up.

“Cool," she says. “I’ll see you guys later. Bye, Peter.”

He gives her an awkward thumbs up back.

“Bye, Liz.”

MJ  _ huh _ s as she walks away and closes her book.

“Are we actually going?” She asks lowly.

Peter shrugs.

“I mean. Why not? We don’t have to stay all night.”

MJ eyes him dully.

Then she pulls his undershirt tight on his arm before letting snap back against his skin.

“Ow! Why?” He hisses. “Why would you do that?”

MJ squints at him and gives a weird sort of laugh.

“Because I could. And because you signed me up for a party. You know I hate people.”

“But you’d get to people watch and draw them as they make bad  _ decisions.” _ Peter points out in what is  _ not  _ a whine.

MJ squints even harder.

He clasps his hands in a pleading gesture.

The squinting intensifies even as she grumbles, 

“Maybe so.”

And after a moment Ned  _ wheezes  _ like he just lost all the air in his lungs.

_ “Holy shit, we’re going to Liz Allen’s party.”  _ He says with what sounds like awe and horror.

Peter laughs.

———

May looks kind of excited when he tells her that him, Ned, and MJ are going to a friend's party.

Maybe it’s that they’re spending time together, maybe it’s that it’s a party, or maybe it’s that she’s going to actually know where he is and what he’s doing.

She usually doesn’t, and it’s kind of awful .

May is the best aunt that anyone could ask for, but Peter doesn’t tell her what he’s doing more often than not, or he goes behind her back.

He’s pretty sure she knows that too, and is just too nice and patient to call him out on it.

Peter is.

The worst nephew.

Oh god.

“You’re thinking too much.”

Peter looks up as Ned jostles his shoulder.

It makes his seatbelt dig into his neck.

“Stop overthinking whatever it is.” Ned tells him sternly.

Peter blinks.

“But I’m so good at overthinking, Ned.” He says blankly. “It’s like my life skill. What will I do if I can’t overthink?”

“He’s right, Nedthanial,” MJ says from the left backseat.  “He might die if he can’t agonize over everything he’s ever done in his life.”

“I’ll perish instantly.” Peter gravely intones as the car comes to a stop.

His view of Liz’s house,  _ which is really nice holy shit,  _ and teaming with other people and cars and lights and  _ sound,  _ is almost immediately blocked by May leaning over to rest her elbow on the center console and look at them all.

“You kids have fun now, you hear?” She threatens. “I remember how these high school parties can be, so don’t let anyone pressure you into anything you don’t want to do. And if you need an early pick up, just let me know.”

Peter smiles at her as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

“We’ll be good, May, promise.” He swears.

May raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not about being  _ good,  _ kiddo. It’s about having a good  _ time.”  _ She says gently.

MJ reaches past Ned to shove Peter into his door and smile at May.

“Don’t worry, May. We’ll make sure he does at least  _ one  _ stupid teenager thing.”   
“Hey!” He protests. “I do plently of stupid teenager things all the time.”

“Ah,” MJ says, “but are they in full view of other teenagers? No. No they are not. And that is criminal.”   
May laughs.

“Get going, you three,” she says bemusedly. “Or you’re going to be here all night.”

MJ opens the car door with a shrug and Ned follows her from where he was sandwiched in the middle.

May’s eyes grow just a little sadder when it's just them.

“Go have fun, baby,” she whispers, so much quieter than she was before. “You deserve one good night.”

Peter swallows down the lump in his throat.

“Okay, May.” He stops before he’s all the way out the door, and looks back at her. “I love you.”

He didn’t think it was possible, but May manages to look even sadder.

“I love you too.” She makes a shooing motion with her hands. “Now  _ go.” _

He waves as May drives away, and MJ links their arms together, him on her left and Ned on her right.

“Alright, losers,” she intones gravely.  “It is time to engage in the worst activity known to man:  _ socializing with our peers.” _

———

Liz greets them at the door.

“Peter!” She says, ushering them into the house, “You made it! The apology food is over in the kitchen, and so are the drinks.”

There are.

A lot of people in Liz’s house right now.

Wow.

“I can’t believe your parents let you have a party like this,” he dimly hears himself say. “My parents–”

MJ elbows him.

“No orphan jokes.”

Peter wheezes at the same time as Ned, just for different reasons.

"I wasn’t–”

“You were going to make an orphan joke.” She interrupts. “And the only person that doesn’t find them depressing is you.”

“JB thinks they’re funny.” He mutters defensively.

“JB,” MJ intones after a short pause, “Is also an orphan.”

“Karen thinks they’re funny and  _ her _ parents are alive.” Peter argues, and he dimly registers Liz looking between him and MJ with fascination? Maybe horror?   
“Page is an enigma and will not be counted at this time.”

_ “MJ.” _

_ “Peter.” _

Ned steps between them.

“That’s enough,” he says with a flourish that Peter is  _ sure  _ he's practiced. “We’re at a party, not a debate. Shoo.  Go spectate, scavenger .”

MJ flips him off but does in fact skulk off to a wall.

“And  _ you–”  _ Ned jabs a finger into his chest. “ You behave. No orphan jokes. No fights.”   
“I’m not going to fight anyone.” Peter swears.

“Uh huh,” Ned says skeptically.

“I’m  _ not.” _

“Sure, Jan.”

Ned makes an ‘ _ I’m watching you gesture’  _ with both hands, and then peels off to grab a drink.

Which leaves Peter with Liz.

How does–

How does one interact with normal people without a buffer?

Thankfully though, before Peter can attempt some kind of painful small talk, there's a crashing sound deeper in the house that has Liz going pale, apologizing, and rushing off.

It’s easier after that, because he’s… he’s Peter Parker.

No one’s going to bother interacting with him, because even if it wasn’t a  _ big deal,  _ he still broke a senior’s nose on the last day of school.

He still has bandaids on his face and hands everyday, has worn out and stained jeans, has scars that sometimes poked out from the hems of his shirts and deep purple bruises under his eyes that say, ‘ _ I don’t sleep’. _

Peter’s reputation isn’t anything like it was back in middle school, but it’s still…  _ something. _

It still exists.

The only people that really treat him  _ normal  _ are the AcaDec team, who’ve seen him at probably his worst, and the people he went to middle school and had classes with.

Who’re also all on the AcaDec team.

Ned.

MJ.

Cindy.

_ Flash. _

“Hey, Parker.”

It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.

It doesn't.

It's an old ache by now.

He holds his solo cup closer to his chest and presses his back against the wall.

“Hey, Flash.” Peter mumbles to his drink. “Thought you were playing DJ.”

Flash shrugs, and it’s almost careless.

Almost.

But Peter’s been trained to see through that kind of thing.

For a long time now.

By multiple people.

“Not playing,” Flash argues hotly. “Performing. Saw you skulking at the edges,  figured I’d see what the resident cryptid was doing stuck to a wall.”

“Picking my next victim.” Peter rumbles dryly and takes another sip of his drink.

Flash cough-snorts into  _ his  _ drink, but doesn’t say anything.

It’s… almost nice.

Almost like how they used to be.

“You know,” Flash says conversationally, “I didn’t think you’d show. You… you never have time for anything anymore. Haven’t since middle school.”

It stings, like glass biting into his skin, but Flash isn’t… wrong.

Middle school is when everything changed.

When everything got too real, too cruel, too  _ much. _

When Peter had  _ enough  _ with taunting and bruises and people  _ dying. _

When he met Matt.

“What happened to you, Peter?” Flash asks him quietly amidst all the sound and drinking and lights.

A vice squeezes around his heart.

“I dunno, Eugene,” he whispers back. “What happened to  _ you?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pandemic is still going strong. Stay safe, stay at home if you can, wash your hands, and please, dear god, WEAR A MASK


	4. The Original Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh yeah,” Ned says brightly, “You climbed the outside of a giant modern-art house and sequestered yourself on the roof. Totally normal.”  
> “The most normal, even.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been OVER A MONTH and like. Sorry about that guys oof. I've been busy with a new job and then pride month and then like all I think about right now is Transformers because I am a FOOL and watched like, all of the cartoons and now I'm in hell.  
> Also the backlight on my tablet died but dw dw it just means I gotta go back to Classic Blues and write everything on my phone  
> Hope everyone is still staying safe! And please, dear god, wear a mask

Flash walks away.

Peter isn’t sure why he was expecting something different.

Why he was expecting anything at all.

Flash hasn’t been his friend in a long time.

Flash hasn’t been  _ Eugene _ in a long time.

_ Stupid. _

Peter presses the heel of his palm into his eye, and then drags his hand down his face.

This was stupid.

Liz was well intentioned.

But he shouldn’t have come.

Parties aren’t–

Parties aren’t his thing.

Not his scene.

Not the place where he feels  _ good. _

Not when all the people there look at him and don’t  _ Know. _

He catches MJ’s eye, and he’s sure she can see the sudden unease that’s settled into his skin.

She doesn’t look disappointed as he slips out the door.

Resigned, maybe.

Understanding.

Peter doesn’t know if that’s worse.

He doesn’t know how to be known.

By people that he’s been deceiving since the beginning.

Karen and Foggy… they always knew.

Clint knew he was  _ different,  _ and so did Mr. Castle, and Bucky had known his secrets starting from the day they’d met and into forever.

Mister Luke Cage and Miss Jones and Danny and Colleen… they’d put things together on their own.

Claire had never been an optional kind of thing.

People found out, or were told, but never by him.

Always someone else.

And being known is  _ terrifying. _

Because Ned and MJ, they still see a liar, they still see secrets and deceptions, but now they see  _ blood  _ and _ bullets  _ and _ scars  _ and _ masks  _ and _ bloody knuckles from punching someone clean through a wall. _

It makes his skin crawl even as it loosens his hold on his tongue.

Peter had told May they would stay a while, that they would have a good time, but he–

He doesn’t really feel comfortable doing that now, and climbs up the side of Liz’s house to wait it out on the roof instead.

Maybe if he’d avoided Flash it would’ve been different.

Maybe he could’ve eaten the apology food, and drink the punch he was sure was spiked, and spent an hour or so of his time feeling human.

But now there’s a quiet disappointment sitting in his gut, an old anger fizzled to ashes, an aged bitterness he can taste on the back of his teeth.

Talking to Flash always ends the same.

He needs to stop doing it.

It’s like shooting himself in the foot.

Peter hunkers down further, curling his arms around his knees, and tries to anchor himself in the sound and vibrations rising through the rooftop from the floors below.

If he focuses, he can almost catch MJ’s heartbeat and the smell of graphite and ink, or Ned’s and his burnt circuitry and the cloying smell of the aftershave he picked because he was maybe trying a bit too hard to seem mature and likeable.

Ned was concerned about other people maybe too much, MJ not at all, and Peter fell somewhere in the middle.

They almost balanced each other out.

Almost.

They didn’t balance each other out as much when Peter was skulking out of sight on a roof for long enough that Ned had to call him.

“Where are you?”

Peter tilts his head into the receiver.

“On the roof.”

“How did you–” Ned’s jaw closes with a click Peter can hear over the line. “Nevermind.”

He laughs a little bit.

“I climbed like a normal person, Ned.”

“Oh yeah,” Ned says brightly, “You climbed the outside of a giant modern-art house and sequestered yourself on the roof. Totally normal.”

“The most normal, even.”

“So like a parkour ninja from Assassin’s Creed instead of an asthmatic sophomore or a horrifying spider-creature?”

Peter makes a faux offended noise.

“Hey, I’ll have you know Karen thought I looked like the Exorcist.” He protests. “Show a little respect.”

There’s a pause.

Maybe… maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

“The  _ Exorcist?”  _ Ned finally says, a disbelieving edge to the dripping words.

“She thought it was very funny.” Peter assures him tightly.

He  _ shouldn’t have said that. _

He told people.

He told people before Ned and MJ and May.

_ Damn it,  _ but he really shouldn’t have said that.

“You gonna come back down soon?” Ned asks after a moment of tense silence.

Peter digs the heel of his palm into his forehead.

“I dunno,” he finally says. “I talked to Flash. Didn’t… really feel like talking to anyone after that.”

There’s a soft sound over the line that he barely hears against the backdrop of the music.

“So you ran.” Ned says, and it almost doesn’t sound like an accusation.

Peter digs the heel of his palm in further, and then drags his hand through his hair.

“I’m good at running, Ned.” He whispers helplessly.

There’s another pause.

“Yeah,” Ned finally whispers back. “I guess you are.”

And then white-hot coals crash into his spine with the feel of a thousand spiders walking over his bones.

Peter looks up and–

There’s–

_ – _ _ glass and metal and steel wool, burning burning burning as the whole city screams at once with the rending of support beams and concrete _ _ – _

A great mushroom of boiling blue fire rising in the distance.

Peter swallows harshly.

“Something just came up.” He croaks to the receiver. “I’m gonna have to call you back.”

———

He hates golf courses.

Like, for multiple reasons.

One? 

Golf is a rich white people sport.

Two?

There’s so much land that could be like, a park, or apartments, or shops.

Three?   
_ Nowhere to swing. _

It’s just an open expanse and he has to springboard off of one lamp to the next.

It’s also like? The middle of the night? Do they even need to be on?

_ Think of the light pollution? _

It also like.

Makes his arms tired.

Because he’s landing on his hands and then pushing off against his full weight through the air and then doing it  _ again _ with increasing speed.

It’s not hard but it is repetitive and boring and it starts to wear down on his wrists.

On the other side of the golf course there’s, thank someone, flat roof tops and street signs, a big neighborhood with a road running between the houses and out into a bridge.

He thinks there might be a lake a little further up.

Peter mostly sticks to brownstones and high rises and skyscrapers, so it's kind of different seeing an actual neighborhood with yards and fences and driveways.

The neighborhood isn't where the smell of ash is coming from though.

That's further down towards the bridge.

Ash and smoke and the almost-smell of burning  _ heat. _

He doesn't like it.

He doesn't like ash or smoke or burning heat in general, because they mean, you know,  _ bad things,  _ but it's… 

It's personal now.

It's personal and the taste of it brings something a little like death slashing at the back of his teeth and over his tongue.

Like rot and fire.

He tries not to think about it.

It just makes it worse.

And when Peter touches down on the bridge, swinging over the edge and onto the underside, he almost chokes on the heaviness of it.

But there's not just smoke and ash.

There's electricity and  _ ozone. _

He doesn't like it. 

_ He doesn't like it. _

There's–

There's three men.

Three men and a van and a car.

One with yellow sleeves holding something that looks like an  _ arm cannon  _ before putting back in the van and digging around for something, another in a black jacket, and the third wearing a dark blue shirt with a thin chain around his neck.

He sounds like Brooklyn.

Yellow sleeves mumbles something that sounds like a sales pitch, and Brooklyn shifts uncomfortably.

_ Black hole grenades. _

_ Chitauri rail guns. _

Black jacket takes a step closer to Brooklyn and Peter tunes Yellow sleeves out for a second, focusing on him, and catches, "We're the only ones selling these high-tech weapons."

Which is.

Ah ha.

Fantastic.

The one night he takes a break.

The  _ one night. _

And he walks right into the thing he's been tracking for  _ weeks. _

Of course.

_ Of course. _

Silly him.

Things can never work out in a way that doesn't complicate his whole life.

That would be too  _ easy. _

Yellow sleeves keeps digging through the van, which doesn't have plates, and Brooklyn frowns.

"I need something to stick up somebody." He starts lowly. "I'm not trying to shoot them back in time."

Peter holds back a snort.

_ Back in time. _

Well, at least he knows to keep an eye out for the guy now.

Most criminals commit crimes because they can't  _ do  _ anything else.

Maybe he'll find the guy and he can get him a sandwich after breaking or confiscating whatever he buys.

And like.

Poke him at something that hires felons or would be felons.

Maybe the guy isn't even a felon.

Maybe it's a one time thing.

Peter doesn't know!

Ugh, vigilantism is so complicated.

Morals.

Ethics.

Gotta be the better person.

Yellow sleeves says something, then, that has Brooklyn going, "Yo, climbers?" and he starts to move towards the van.

And then.

Because of course.

_ Peter's phone goes off. _

Stupid.

Stupid stupid  _ stupid  _ burn him in a fire like a Panic! song.

It's the first thing he's supposed to do.

The  _ first thing. _

Silence the phone.

Trade for a burner.

_ Stupid. _

Yellow sleeves, Black jacket, and Brooklyn all twist at the sound and Peter barely spares a second to decline the call and throw himself into Black jacket's back as he raises a gun to Brooklyn.

There's a soft  _ crunch  _ as he pushes all his weight into it, and Spider-man flips off and out of the way like Black jacket's a springboard.

Brooklyn is pressed up against one of the vans open doors.

He squints his eyes at him.

"What're you doing?  _ Run."  _ He hisses, and it probably doesn't come out as something Spider-man would say, but he doesn't really care.

The only person getting shot here is  _ him. _

No one else.

Not again.

And then ice slides down his back in a split second warning before everything goes  _ white  _ and  _ ringing. _

Someone yells, and everything is  _ burning,  _ and he spasms his fingers into claws as he goes backwards, digging into something soft as his chest rattles and his ears echo.

It feels like an explosion without any of the heat.

It feels like the force of a building crashing into the ground.

He gasps and tries to breathe.

It hurts.

It  _ hurts. _

But he's had worse.

He'll  _ have _ worse.

He's Spider-man.

And he  _ gets back up again. _

The ringing doesn't stop, but the whiteness blurs away in spots, and Yellow sleeves is helping Black jacket up, something shining on the ground, and then he  _ blinks  _ and Black jacket is closer the driver's side door and Yellow sleeves is jumping in the back of the van and–

_ No. _

_ He's not losing them. _

One line.

Braided cable.

He points–

_ And shoots. _

———

_ THERE'S A VULTURE MAN. _

_ WHAT. _

_ THE ACTUAL. _

_ HELL. _

He loses his grip on the van.

He parkours over the houses.

He thinks someone was watching Ferris Bueller.

And then he jumps to land on the van and a BIRD MAN that is  _ not  _ the Falcon  _ grabs him in mid air. _

Why.

_ WHY. _

Why do the  _ weapons dealers  _ get to have  _ flight tech? _

_ Uuuuuuuggghhhh. _

And then, of course, he does the rational thing.

He twists around where Bird guy has a grip on his foot and reaches up to rip out one of his metal feathers.

And then he  _ stabs the engine pack. _

Because he is nothing if not a violent creature.

Bird guy says something through his mask that comes out as more of a like, horrific screech that will haunt his nightmares? and they start to  _ spiral. _

He hadn't realized how high they'd gotten.

But it's high enough that his ears pop in the fall.

So he takes his feather knife, stabs what  _ looks  _ like the release mechanism in the talons holding his foot and slips up and onto Bird guy's back.

That lake he saw, which is  _ definitely  _ a river, may be right under them, but he knows physics.

And if they hit that at the speed they're going they're as good as dead.

Bird guy screeches something again as they get closer to the water–

And that's when he kicks off and jumps.

It's fine.

He's close enough.

It's like high diving.

It's like jumping off of the Empire State.

It's like playing a game and...

And doing a Leap of Faith.

He hits the water–

And the world dissolves into bubbles and foam.

———

Well.

He's not doing that again.

Ever.

_ Ever. _

Wow.

That sucked.

And now?

Peter is  _ soaked. _

Never liked swimming.

Can't even thermoregulate anymore.

So like, hauling himself out of a river?

_ The worst. _

So cold.

So tired.

Waterproof phone though!

So there's that.

At least he can call someone to complain about his suffering.

_ "Wade." _

"Oh okay, not even a hello."

Peter groans.

"Wade I need help."

There's a dramatic gasp.

"Baby boy! Asking for help! I'm so proud of you!" He coos. "Where are you, I'll be right there, hun."

Peter swings his feet on the monkey bars.

"I dunno. Suburban Queens?" He shivers. "I can give you an address but I'm like. Super cold. Please hurry."

There's a clattering noise, and then a thumping like going down a set of stairs.

"Suburban Queens isn't helpful, boo. What're you doin' in Suburban Queens? Also, it's like, August? How're you cold."

Peter wheezes and jumps off the monkey bars.

"I'm a teenager, Wade. I tried going to a friend's party like a normal person." He mumbles as he wrings out his mask. "And my mutation means I can't thermoregulate. I'm soaked to the bone."

There's silence for a minute.

"Soaked?"

Peter groans again.

"I got dropped in a river."

Silence.

Then–

"A RIVER?"

Peter winces at the burst of sound.

So loud.

Wade is.

So loud.

"A river." He confirms, and pretends he can't hear Wade muttering as he rolls his ankle. "I can give you the address for the party I went to? And then I'm like. At the neighborhood across from the golf course. I'll give you a street sign when I find one."

"Ew, a golf course." Wade says.

Peter nods empathetically.

"I  _ know." _

He shakes himself one more time, wringes as much water as he can from his hair, and puts the mask back on.

"Also, don't freak out when you get here."

Wade makes a questioning noise.

"Why would I freak out?"

Peter wrinkles his nose.

"Because I'm a lying liar who lies." He says miserably.

Wade makes a cooing noise.

"Aw, buddy, I won't be mad." He tells him gently. "I don't gotta know everythin' 'bout you. You're allowed to have secrets you haven't told me, boo."

Peter kicks a rock.

"If you're sure." He mumbles. "Just… don't freak out."

"I won't," Wade assures him. "I'll see you soon, kiddo."

"Okay," Peter says back. "I'll see you soon."

And Wade hangs up.

There's silence as he types in Liz's address and sends it to Wade, nothing but crickets and the drone of people's TVs.

Maybe a few cars.

Wind rustling the trees.

And then his phone rings again.

It's not Wade.

"Hey."

"You didn't answer your phone." MJ's voice says over the receiver.

He nods even though she can't see it.

"I know. I was busy."

"Busy doing  _ what?" _

"Breaking up a weapons deal," he says breezily.

There's a little ping in the corner of his HUD, and then a beacon lights up on his lenses.

Just like the one that led him to the bank.

"Chitauri signature detected," says his AI.

Yeah.

He knows.

A for effort though buddy.

MJ makes an angry sound through the notification.

_ "Peter." _

"You asked," he says defensively, and suppresses another shiver. "There was an explosion. I had to check it out."

There is.

A  _ very  _ deep breath from the speaker.

A big inhale.

MJ doesn't say anything for a moment, and Peter continues to walk towards the beacon.

Then, there's a hiss of  _ "Explosion?" _

"Don't worry about it," he says automatically. "It wasn't a bomb, or anythin'. Just weapons dealers."

_ "Just weapons dealers,"  _ MJ mutters. "Because that's  _ totally  _ less concerning."

Peter shrugs.

"For me it is." He says, and kicks another rock. The beacon is getting closer. "One destroys buildings and the other, y'know, doesn't."

MJ doesn't say anything.

Maybe…

Maybe that was too bitter.

Maybe that was too raspy.

Maybe that was too  _ aching with grief. _

Peter digs a hand into the space under his left lense, and takes a deep breath.

He closes his eyes.

"Don't worry about it," he repeats, softer this time. "I dealt with it. I'm okay. Someone's gonna come and get me. I left my backpack in the bushes in front of Liz's house."

MJ still doesn't say anything.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow." He offers weakly.

"… Yeah." MJ says after a moment. "I'll see you at school tomorrow. Don't do anything dangerous, idiot."

Peter smiles, and it feels almost like a shield.

"Danger's my middle name MJ." He says lightly, and the beacon flashes once before disappearing. "Tell Ned I'm okay?"

MJ makes a scoffing noise.

"Yeah, alright."

The line goes dead.

And in front of him, in a furrow, there's a violent, humming  _ purple. _

Well.

Maybe the Luck knows how to turn the other way after all.

———

Chitauri tech is his hunt, but he's not stupid.

It's volatile and dangerous.

He needs a  _ lab  _ if he wants to poke at this without fear of getting himself or someone else killed.

Which means bringing it to  _ the Tower uuuuugh. _

It's fine.

It's fine.

FRIDAY likes him best anyway.

He'll go in early, drop it off, and swear FRIDAY to secrecy.

He knows that Mr. Stark said he knew that Peter could handle this one, and that he wouldn't butt in, but like.

It's Mr. Stark.

It's  _ Tony. _

He gets curious.

It's like a disease.

Peter sighs, and drags both hands down his mask.

This is making him tired.

Big-complicated-conspiracy-crime is the worst.

It's the worst, and it always ends up with bodies.

He eyes the casing around the purple stone, and sighs again.

It's gonna be a long night.

He drops a location pin to Wade, and there's a little thumbs up a second later.

He frowns.

_ Don't text and drive,  _ he types.

Wade sends a  _ :(  _ and nothing else.

Peter lays flat on his back and groans.

Everything is sore.

From hitting the water and then also just.

From being so cold for so long.

He hates being cold.

He  _ hates it. _

It's like everything starts to fog up, slowly and silently, like ivy creeping up a brick wall.

Worst part of the mutation.

Not the super anxiety.

The  _ cold. _

Can't stay warm and can't stay cool.

Ugh.

_ Ugh. _

"Oh I get it now."

He groans.

Wade leans over him.

"Boo, you need a hobby that  _ isn't  _ wearing a mask and punching people."  He says dryly.

Peter covers his eyes.

"I was being hunted and I have a guilt complex,  Wade," he whines. "I stayed underground for a  _ year.  _ A  _ year." _

He can hear the rustle of fabric as Wade crouches down beside him, and the sound of something being dropped.

"Why'd you stop?"

Peter digs his fingers into his elbows, and presses his forearms further into his face.

"My uncle was murdered."

Wade doesn't say anything for a moment.

Then he mutters, "Yeah, that'll do it."

Peter tries to breathe, and Wade let's him.

Wade always does.

He  _ always  _ gives him space.

Always always always.

So did Ben.

"I'm okay now," he croaks.

Wade makes a disbelieving sound.

"No you're not, but if it helps you sleep at night…"

He laughs.

"It doesn't." He says.

Wade taps his forehead.

"Then why lie about it? There's no one here, baby boy. You don't gotta lie if you don't want to."

He digs his fingers in even more.

"I'm just used to it, I guess." Peter whispers. 

And then–

Wade grabs his hands.

Pries them off of his elbows, out of the grooves they're making.

"You're gonna hurt yourself if you keep doin' that. C'mon," Wade says softly. "Let's get you out of here before you get hypothermia or somethin'. Can spiders get hypothermia?"

Peter laughs, just a little.

"I don't know. I'll Google it."

Wade laughs too.

"You do that. We bringing Purple Kryptonite over there?" He asks as he pulls Peter to his feet.

Purple–

"Wade, that's  _ Chitauri tech." _

Wade makes a soft noise.

"Ah, so you did find them."

_ So he did find them. _

"I found them  _ twice,"  _ he mumbles angrily. "And I got hit  _ both times." _

Wade looks back at him, the eyes of his mask turning down.

"Hit? You need a doc or something? Bleeding or anything?"

Peter waves a hand at him.

"No, it just– it just hurt." He grumbles. "I'm not bleeding. Just sore. And cold."

And it's the truth.

This one… didn't linger like the other one.

It didn't hang in his head and leave him stupid enough to get shot.

It just… made him white out for a bit.

That's all.

Wade makes a skeptical sound, but doesn't push, and picks up a duffle bag from where they'd been sitting.

Probably the thing Peter had heard him drop.

"Sound fake, but okay." Wade says, and Peter laughs again. "I brought you one'a your go-bags.

And, yeah, it's got a little red star stitched into the strap.

Bucky had gone over all of them with a needle when they'd been stashing them so that he'd know which ones were his.

It was a nice gesture.

It still made him feel warm.

"Thanks," Peter says, and hauls the strap over his shoulder before crouching down and picking up the casing.

The stone continues to him in it's little hook up, and he frowns before unzipping the duffle and dropping it in.

"Okay." He says. "We can go now."

Wade gives him a thumbs up.

"Awesome. I told Weasel to order food, so get ready for like, eight boxes of pizza. Car's this way."

Peter hums thoughtfully.

"I didn't know you had a car."

Wade laughs.

"Oh I don't."

It takes a second and then–

_ "WADE." _

But he's–

He's still laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uuuuh also drew like a playlist series for Peter btw! There's  three in total! 


	5. The Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well I’m not gonna dramatically pose on a synagogue. That’d be disrespectful.” Peter says matter of factly.  
> A long pause.  
> “You give me heartburn.” MJ mutters.  
> “Yes,” he says. “We’ve established that I do that. It’s part of my charm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my GOD it's been TWO MONTHS. IT'S BEEN WILD Y'ALL. I got a JOB and shit like a real adult. I've also! Been dabbling in other fandoms, how DARE. That's part of why this took so long, haha.  
> It's here now tho! At uuuhhh *checks watch* four am! We're like half way through the movie!

"Who let you have a child," is the first thing Peter hears when Wade pushes open Sister Margaret's' door.

The second is, _"Shit,_ is that Spider-man?"

“Are there any others?” Peter asks sarcastically, and it’s probably a bit more caustic that he should really be wearing the mask but–

He’s _tired._

So tired.

He’s gotten shot with weird alien weaponry, _again,_ dropped in a lake, _that’s a new one,_ and had to abandon his friends at a party, _one part new and one part Parker Why Do You Continue To Be A Shitty Friend?_

He’ll bite someone if he has to, at this point.

 _But bloodborne pathogens,_ says his conscience.

 _But I’m mad,_ says his teeth.

Wade’s laughter cuts off his thoughts, and he tunes back into the man behind the counter.

“So _mean_ Spidey.” Wade teases.

“It’s my secret.” Peter says conspiratorially, and Wade laughs again. “It’s all a facade. I’m secretly the meanest person you’ve ever met.”

Wade coos.

“Aw, with those dimples? You smile too much.”

“At other people’s _pain.”_ He says with as much grit as he can, and the man behind the counter lets out a choked sort of wheeze.

_Better._

Much more Spider-man.

“Wade.” The man hisses. “What is _Spider-man_ doing in my _bar?”_

“This is Weasel,” Wade introduces like he didn’t hear him. “The guy I put in your phone, remember?”

Peter raises an eyebrow, and hears the faint whir as his mask lenses move to squint one eye.

“You put a lot of people in my phone, Wade.” He says dryly. “Like, four people. W, NS, NT, and L. An’ you said to only call L on pain of death.”

Weasel hisses again as Wade waves a hand dismissively.

“Yeah, cause if I know traumatic vigilante backstories, baby boy, you probably have dead parents, or like, a dead dad, and he’s basically a walking guilt trip for dad issues.” He hums brightly.

Peter blinks, and swallows back the twang.

“Oh fun.” Is what he chokes out.

Wade snorts.

“Yeah, he’s a five foot nothin’ riot.”

Weasel makes another hissing noise.

It isn’t as good as Peter’s.

“You gave him _Logan’s phone number?”_

Wade clicks his tongue.

“Don’t say the name, Weasel. It’s bad luck.”

Weasel grimaces. 

“He’s _dead.”_

“That’s what everyone thought the last time.” Wade sagely demurs.

“Shot. Buried. Burned alive.” Weasel lists like he’s trying to convince a dog that eating plastic will only end badly.

“Eh, he’s had worse.” Wade says back.

“Anyway!” Peter interrupts loudly. “I was promised pizza. I got dropped in a river. I deserve a pizza.”

Weasel blinks.

“In a _river?”_

Peter makes a face under the mask. “Why’s everyone so surprised by that? I leave Queens. Sometimes.”

“Do you?” Wade asks bemusedly, like it’s an inside joke.

Which.

It kind of is.

“Oh yeah, totally.” He says. “I go up to Brooklyn an’ chase down Hawkeye’s dog. Sometimes Bucky and I watch Buzzfeed Unsolved. Captain Rogers is obsessed.”

“I’m dissociating.” Weasel announces loudly after a moment. “I’m having a stroke. An out of body experience. God is not with me because he isn’t real and reality is a hologram.”

Peter starts cackling, and it lasts long enough for his sides to start hurting.

Weasel uses this as a distraction to retreat into the back room, and Wade has to wrangle him out so that they can get to the pizza.

It’s very reminiscent of Captain Rogers lugging Bucky around to stop him from doing weird shit.

He says as much and it sends Weasel into another tirade that has Wade wheezing.

It’s… nice.

He used to do stuff like this with–

He used to do stuff like this with Matt.

Peter hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

“Is he always like this?” He asks Wade as Weasel hisses another string of swears into his plate, and Wade grins with all his teeth.

Peter can tell, because he’s got his mask pushed up to eat, same as him.

“Sure is!” Wade chirps. “It’s what makes him such a barrel o’laughs, kid.”

Peter considers that.

“Kinda reminds me of Colonel Rhodes when we went to Germany,” he decides, and takes another bite of his pizza. “It’s the same energy.”

“Why do you keep _saying_ things?” Weasel groans, pushing up his glasses as he rubs at his face. _“What did I do to deserve this?”_

“It adds t’my mystique,” Peter answers helpfully. “And you’re just a casualty of war.”

Weasel purses his lips as he stares at him, and then his gaze turns accusing in the direction of Wade.

“Where did you _find_ this kid?”

Wade grins, and the whites of his mask squint like he’s closed his eyes.

“I got hired to kill him.”

Weasel’s face is one of complete and utter uncomprehension.

“You what.”

“Got hired to kill him.” Wade repeats helpfully.

“We never took a card for Spider-man.” Weasel says.

“I never said I got hired to kill _Spider-man.”_ Wade replies, clicking his tongue in a very _for shame_ kind of way. “Just that I got hired to kill _him.”_

That.

Sure is a lot of concern on Weasel’s face.

“I don’t want to know.” He declares abruptly in the following silence. “I don’t want to know. Plausible deniability.”

“That’s good,” Peter hums. “”cause I didn’t feel like tellin’.”

There’s another moment of silence, and then Wade taps at his duffle bag with his foot.

“What’re you gonna do with it?” He asks around a mouthful of garlic bread.

Peter tilts his head for a moment, and then straightens in understanding.

“Drop it off at the Tower and work on it after school probably.” He says without really thinking. “Stick it in a vault or somethin’. I’ve gotten hit with the stuff _twice_ now. I’m not takin’ any chances.”

 _“After school,”_ Weasel whispers to himself at the same time Wade says “The Tower?”

Peter waves a hand.

“Stark Tower, Avengers Tower, _the_ Tower, whatever they’re callin’ it.” He says dismissively. “I’m an R&D intern. Could probably poke at Iron Fist and use his labs instead, but Stark’s got AI that can do monitorin’ an’ stuff, an’ I’m paranoid.”

Wade touches a hand to his heart while Weasel throws up his hands and falls backwards into his chair, almost knocking it to the floor.

“You have an in with _Stark?”_ Wade asks curiously. “How’d you–”

“I broke into his house,” Peter interrupts before he can finish. “And downed his AI for about half an hour so I could lecture him.”

There’s another pause.

And then Wade very carefully puts a hand on his shoulder and says, very, very seriously, 

_“This is why you’re my favorite spider.”_

———

May calls him while Wade is taking him home.

He’s tired, and he doesn’t feel like swinging, and the thought of taking the train without someone to watch his back grates on his nerves like the squeak of styrofoam rubbing together.

“Hey, May.” He whispers quietly, and Wade looks over at him curiously for a moment, before setting his gaze back on the road and the traffic.

“Peter.” Is all she says, and he wants to crumple in a ball and never move again.

“I’m sorry.” He immediately says back, and she sighs over the receiver.

“I haven’t said anything, sweetie.” 

“Yet.” He mumbles, and there’s a sound that might be May huffing.

“I’m not mad at you.” She says with what can only be exasperation.

“Why would I think you were mad at me?” Peter hesitantly replies, but he’s sure she can–

“Because that’s what you do, kiddo.” Is what she says next, and _yeah she saw past it okay._

There’s a tap as Wade pats his shoulder and Peter curls up in the passenger seat, drawing his knees up.

“I’m sorry for not staying.” He mumbles, and May sighs again.

He makes her sigh a lot.

“You don’t have to stay at a party if you don’t want to.” She says softly. “I just want you to enjoy yourself and have a good time, sweetie.”

He swallows harshly.

It kind of hurts.

_“… I know.”_

When he doesn’t say anything else, May sighs again.

“You don’t have to tell me where you went,” she says softly, and sounds so weary that Peter wants to cry or maybe punch something. “But are you okay?”

He thinks about the new bruises around his ankle from Bird Guy’s claw foot, the bruises on his fingers from tearing open metal, the bruises from _hitting water at high speeds–_

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

He should probably do something about that actually.

He keeps having to peel stuff open, and he’s strong enough for it, but it always hurts afterwards.

He can’t really do gauntlets because that takes away from the whole _sticky hands_ thing goin’ on with Spider-man but maybe something retractable? Like the claws on his other suit? He should call Melvin again–

“That’s good.” May hums, something like relief flowing over the line. “Are you heading home soon? From wherever you are?”

The fact that she has to _ask that–_

“‘M on m’way ri’ now.” He mumbles softly. “Wade’s takin’ m’ home.”

There’s a pause.

“Wade?”

“S’like… s’like Matt.” Peter manages to croak out. 

Another pause.

“‘E makes sure I eat an’ sleep an’ stuff.” He adds helpfully.

May sighs loudly.

“Well, tell him thank you for me, then.”

He looks dolefully at Wade.

“My aunt says thank you for makin’ sure I don’t starve myself.” Peter tells him, and Wade snorts before making a motion for him to hand over the phone.

He does after a second of consideration.

Wade gives him a long look, for just a second, before settling Peter’s phone next to his ear.

“Your nephew’s a good kid, ma’am. I’m just tryna help him along.” He says evenly, and Peter hasn’t heard him sound that calm since the church roof.

It’s kind of weird.

He doesn’t know what May says in response, but it has Wade nodding after a long moment.

“Of course, ma’am. I’ll do my best.”

_What._

“What did you just agree to?” He asks urgently, suddenly alert. “What did she say?”

Wade tilts his head to hold Peter’s phone against his shoulder and uses his free hand to push him back into his seat.

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo.” He says lightly, and then twitches at something from over the line. “No, I fed him ma’am. He ate.”

“Oh my god do _not.”_

“It’s too late, she asked.” Wade chirps, completely unapologetic.

“This was a mistake, give me back my phone.” Peter demands, making a grab for it that Wade brushes off.

“Driving, hands to yourself. You can strangle me later.” Wade says loftily, and Peter hisses at him. “That’s right, kid, you hiss your heart out. Your aunt says not to hiss at people, by the way.”

Mistake.

_Mistake._

Wade must never be allowed to talk to May ever again.

_Ever._

_Ugh._

———

Peter doesn’t go on patrol after he gets home, so when he goes to school, he feels moderately rested for once in his life.

He doesn’t like it.

It means he can’t nap his way through classes in an effort to make the day go faster

_Disgusting._

He’d managed to drop off the– _goddamn it, Wade_ – purple kryptonite at the tower after getting off the train, with instructions for FRIDAY to _not fuckin touch it_ and also _not let Stark know about it until Peter was back and had it in his hands._

No Chitauri tech for Stark.

Not this time.

He could be a consultant _but nothing more._

Peter was putting his foot down.

“What’s with the death glare?”

“Plotting out boundaries so that Mr. Stark keeps his grubby mitts off my stuff.” He grumbles into his arms, and there’s a pause.

Then Ned pats his shoulder.

“There, there.” He says consolingly.

Peter huffs into his jacket sleeves.

“Pepper says I should try writing out a list and taping it to my desk so that if Mr. Stark reads them and messes with my stuff anyway he doesn’t have plausible deniability and I can punch him without repercussions.” He tells him, and Ned doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I can’t even begin to comprehend that whole…” Ned makes a gesture with one hand. “That. So I’m not gonna.”

“A solid choice,” Peter says solemnly. “Happy does that. He says I give him heartburn.”

“You give everyone heartburn.”

He twists a little to look behind him.

“Thanks MJ.” He says. “You really know how to compliment a guy.”

MJ pats his face, and he scrunches up his nose.

“You’re welcome, Arachnikid.”

“I resent that remark.”

“Resemble.” MJ corrects.

“No.” He responds dully.

“Stopping this argument before it’s begun,” Ned says drily over the both of them, and Peter lets out another grumble to hide his smile. “Think of the teachers, guys. They can’t handle the combined energy.”

MJ sticks out her tongue.

It’s very mature.

They’re.

 _So_ mature.

An inspiration to teenagers everywhere.

“You’re brooding.”

“I’m not.” He replies automatically. “I’m thinking. There’s a difference.”

“Oh yeah?” Ned asks. “What is it?”

“I brood on churches and high rises. I think everywhere else.”

A pause.

“Churches?” Ned mutters skeptically.

“New York has _so many.”_ He complains after a considering moment. It can’t hurt. “I don’t think you realize _how_ many until you spend like, half your time trying to find a vantage point or a place to eat.”

“But why _churches?”_

“Well I’m not gonna dramatically pose on a synagogue. That’d be disrespectful.” Peter says matter of factly.

A long pause.

“You give me heartburn.” MJ mutters.

“Yes,” he says. “We’ve established that I do that. It’s part of my charm.”

Ned… sighs.

Peter doesn’t like how tired it sounds.

It sounds like _him._

He scrambles for something to do, something to say, to make it better–

_Idea._

“Hey, do you guys wanna come with me? To work?” He asks hopefully. “I can show you the thing I found last night and we can make fun of Mr. Stark.”

Ned and MJ squint at him in unison.

And then they both say, “You make _fun_ of _Tony Stark?”_ in two such _radically_ different tones of voice that he can’t help but laugh.

———

Peter takes one step into the tower and he’s immediately bombarded with alerts.

Four from his regular floor, two from his desk in Mr. Stark’s lab, and one from Miss Potts.

Alerts from Miss Potts are… never good.

Ned makes an awed sort of noise at the sight of the holoscreens that immediately flicker into place around him, and then proceed to follow like glowing, scolded puppies.

MJ eyes them for a second, something almost like open curiosity on her face, before looking away.

Probably to take in the huge arched ceiling and clean lines, all glass and steel and the vibrant green of potted plants and ivy.

It’s… a lot, the first time you see it all in person.

Like being in a cathedral, but the only thing worshipped is maybe close toed shoes and research grants.

The only prayers he’s ever heard on his floor are for things to not accidentally turn into time bombs again.

Personally, he agrees with that too.

He doesn’t really feel like doing that again.

Peter fishes around for his work ID and lazily clips it to his jacket, waving away the curious look of the receptionist.

“They’re with me, don’t worry about it.” He calls over his shoulder. “I’ll get FRIDAY to make some IDs when I get the chance.”

He’s ninety-seven percent sure her name is Angela and one hundred percent sure that they’re halfway to a feud because Peter keeps not actually checking in at the desk.

She’s very good at passive aggression.

They step into the glass elevator, all smooth steel lines, and Peter draws the holoscreens tight around him as MJ and Ned file in.

Ned makes a sad sort of noise as the holoscreen he’d managed to conjoul into his arms drifts away, but there’s still a sort of reverence in the way he looks at everything around him, a sort of concealed appreciation in the way MJ touches the glass walls.

Peter hasn't looked like that in a long time, and stops that train of thought before it can get too painful to check his screens.

The alerts from his floor are just notices, two people out with mild burns, and a pointed but nameless reminder to stop reprogramming the floor mascot to follow Mr. Stark.

The floor mascot was technically a repurposed roomba that Berg brought in to fix during their off hours and… never actually made it back home, for whatever reason.

Regardless.

Peter was the one who kept reprogramming it.

He swipes them all away dismissively, opens up the two from his private station, and frowns.

The Black Widow left something on his desk.

Never. A good. Sign.

It could be anything from fancy takeout to candids of his parents that she had squirreled away somewhere to headshots of people he’s looking for that he _didn’t tell her about._

The other is an alert that one of his packages came in.

A huge swath of synthetic fabric that he wants to try using on a new suit.

He sets a reminder so that he doesn’t forget to bring it to Melvin, and opens the message from Miss Potts.

It’s just one sentence.

_What did we say about Tony behavior?_

Peter groans, and swipes it away.

He’s been sleeping, and eating, and not hyperfocusing on any one thing.

He _has._

_He has, he swears._

“Did Stark touch any of my stuff?” Peter asks the ceiling, and Ned looks at him curiously up until FRIDAY responds, “He did not. Miss Potts has had him speaking with Pym Industries today.”

Peter blinks slowly.

“Mr. Stark hates Pym Industries.” He says carefully.

There’s a buzzing all through the walls as FRIDAY lets out an electronic hum.

“Correct, Mr. Parker.” She responds. “Boss does, however, like Mr. Scott Lang, and as an employee of Pym Industries, collaborations must be–”

“Is he having a cat fight with Hank Pym because he wants to borrow one of his employees?” Peter interrupts curiously.

There’s a pause, and then FRIDAY does another hum.

“That is an adapt assessment, Mr. Parker.”

“That’s dumb is what it is.” He says back.

“Also an adapt assessment.”

"Is he gonna get out of that any time soon?" Peter asks after a moment of silence.

FRIDAY makes a soft sort of sound, and then says, "I do not believe so, however Vision has just taken to mitigating. I believe they are discussing repairs now, Mr. Parker."

"That's…" he purses his lips. Vision is… he doesn't know Vision very well. "That's good. Let me know if he gets out early?"

The electricity pulses in the walls like the swaying tide.

He's never heard another building do that.

He wonders if the tower is just weird.

He wonders if FRIDAY does it on purpose because she knows he can hear it.

"Of course Mr. Parker." FRIDAY says pleasantly. "This is your stop. Try not to blow anything up until Boss gets back, if you please."

Peter snorts as he steps through the still opening doors.

"I make no promises."

“Do you make a habit of blowing things up?” MJ asks curiously from his shoulder, and Peter looks back, for just a moment.

There’s something heavy in her gaze.

_One destroys buildings and the other, y'know, doesn't._

“No,” he says defensively, and hopes it’s enough to take the weight out of her words. “I get things stuck together or burned. Or broken. I’ll admit to the broken thing.”

“And torn up,” FRIDAY adds helpfully.

Peter nods empathetically, pointing to the ceiling.

“I’ve clawed up a _bunch_ of stuff.” He admits after only a second of Ned’s eyes going a little alarmed. “Lots of fabric tests against knives and the ‘casional ballistics.”

“Ballistics.” MJ repeats dully.

Peter raises an eyebrow.

“Well I don’t exactly wanna call something bulletproof if I don’t know for _sure_ do I?”

They both go a little pale, and Peter is painfully reminded of the fact that the Falcon had to dig a bullet out of his stomach just the other night.

That MJ and Ned had to see him bleed out in the alleyway next to his apartment.

That his hands had been coated in his own blood and they’d _seen._

Maybe too soon to be making bullet jokes.

Maybe.

“Anyway!” He shouts into the silence, and it startles MJ and Ned enough that their gazes snap back into focus, away from remembering, and solely on him.

Peter sweeps out his arm in a grand gesture, and almost bows at the stomach. Just for dramatics.

“Welcome, to the personal lab of Anthony E. Stark.” He grins, and kicks an armor plate out of the way so he doesn’t trip. “It’s a mess and no, it doesn’t get any better.”

A mess would… be putting it lightly.

See, Mr. Stark had this bad habit of starting a project, getting bored, and starting another one.

Then he’d get bored with _that_ and start _another_ new project, and eventually work his way back to the first one after spawning maybe a dozen other new things to do.

This meant that the lab _always_ had something in it.

Always something fabricating, always something stewing, always something to walk into half asleep and fall all over.

Peter could count half a dozen arrows at a time, probably for Clint unless Mr. Stark had taken up blacksmithing and medieval weapons as a hobby, at least three different shield prototypes for Captain Rogers, most of which were usually embedded deep in the walls, and a new suit, _always_ a new suit, with a slightly different color scheme and plating edging smooth, smooth, _smoother_ every time Mr. Stark made a new design.

There was always something.

Always always always.

There were only two quiet parts in the whole lab.

One, a desk in the far corner that Peter was _not_ allowed to touch or go near.

Ever.

It had a lot of kitten posters along the steel walls above it saying things like _Hang in there_ and _It’s healthy to talk about your feelings_ and _Stay calm and look at how cute this cat is._

There was a face down photograph on top of one of the shelves under the _Hang in there_ kitten, and a couple candles.

Peter knew who’s desk it was.

It belonged to Doctor Banner.

Who’d been missing with no word to anyone since Sokovia.

He’d just… disappeared.

Up and gone, like he’d never existed.

Like a ghost.

Mr. Stark didn’t like to look at Doctor Banner’s desk.

It made him upset, the same way looking at the Arc Reactor from Sokovia made him blank.

He could tell.

It was his job to tell.

So Peter did his best to leave it alone.

The _other_ quiet part of Mr. Stark’s lab was _his_ desk.

And it was only quiet when he wasn’t actually _there._

The rest of the time he was as guilty of yelling, causing damage, and being a general pain as Mr. Stark himself.

At times.

A good fifty-fifty.

He got excited.

Which usually led to yelling and victory gymnastics.

_He couldn’t help it, okay?_

It wasn’t a big area.

Mostly shelves and organizers and drawers.

A long desk with a white board on the wall above it that Mr. Stark cried about because they had _holoscreens, Parker. Holoscreens._

He hated the smell of expo markers, but it was… grounding, in a way, when he got too in his own head.

Too sharp and stinging to be able to ignore.

Even when the burning steel of an experiment gone wrong made him start to lose his hold on everything around him.

Even then.

_Even then._

Whatever.

_Anyway._

“Be careful not to touch or step on anything, and you should be fine.” Peter says firmly, doing his best to drag himself back to the present. “And don’t touch that desk over there. Don’t even breath on it.”

MJ raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look at him.

“Why?”

Peter purses his lips.

He’d like to tell her.

He really would.

He doesn’t want to lie to them anymore, or omit the truth, or anything like that.

He wants to be honest.

But telling her about Doctor Banner isn’t his… place, for lack of a better word.

If MJ should ask anyone, though really she shouldn’t ask _at all,_ it would be Mr. Stark.

Doctor Banner is part of his circle of secrets.

Not Peter’s.

“Just don’t.” He tells her, and she tears her gaze away from the posters and unmelted candles.

MJ’s eyes are always so damn heavy.

 _“Why?”_ She asks again, and Peter very suddenly kind of hates how she never lets anything go.

She’d make a great reporter.

A great lawyer.

A great _anything_ that she put her mind to.

But right now, he just wants her to drop it.

Peter's known Mr. Stark for months now, and even he’d never asked.

He’d figured it out on his own.

You don’t just _ask_ about that kind of thing.

You don’t.

Peter didn’t ask about Miss Pott’s burning veins, or Happy’s scarred up skin, or Doctor Banner’s desk.

Mr. Stark didn’t ask about Peter’s own burns, or who made his suit, or about the rosary that rattled around his wrist, because if nothing else he knew that Peter wasn’t Catholic.

There were certain things you didn’t talk about.

That was how it all worked.

 _“Because,”_ Peter grits back. “Just _don’t.”_

MJ opens her mouth, probaby to hiss another but equally biting _“Why?”,_ when Ned shakes her by the shoulder, and she twists to look at him instead.

“Drop it, dude,” he says gently, softly, edged and cloaked in steel. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

She turns back to him, then, eyes still so _heavy heavy heavy,_ like she’s looking for something that isn’t quite there.

Peter isn’t going to tell her.

He can’t.

That’s not how this whole thing works.

You don’t talk about the missing or the dead or the gone.

Not unless the other person brings it up first.

It’s only polite.

It’s only common courtesy.

It’s… not something most people would think about.

It’s not like not asking about the portraits above the mantel of people you can tell are dead.

It’s different.

Kind of the same.

But still different.

You don’t go just _handing out_ the bonds people make.

That’s like painting targets, drawing weak spots.

It’s _stupid._

It’s–

Shit.

He got distracted.

Looping thoughts.

_Damn it._

Peter shakes his head violently, trying to dislodge the rut his brain had fallen into, and walks deeper into the lab, towards the drawers meant to hold Arc Reactors and other various small bombs.

It had seemed like the best place to stash the Chitauri Tech at the time.

The purple stone was about the same size, and probably twice as volatile, surrounded by the twisted up outer casing.

It’s so small, for something that’s probably incredibly dangerous.

“Did you get any weird readings from this, FRIDAY?” He asks the ceiling, and there’s another curious hum through the power lines.

“I ran comparisons with JARVIS’ files from the New York Invasion, and I believe it is an explosive Chitauri energy core, Mr. Parker.” FRIDAY tells him helpfully.

Peter takes two seconds to process that, and then drops the thing on his desk with a dull _thud._

“Oh cool, so I was carrying this around in my duffle bag.” He drawls tiredly, and tries to pretend his hands aren’t shaking. “Sweet.”

_God, he hates bombs._

“It would require radiation to make it into a bomb, if that makes you feel better, Mr. Parker.”

“A little bit.” He bites out, and starts rifling through his tool drawers.

He _hates_ bombs.

Hates hates _hates._

Maybe more than guns.

JB uses guns.

He’s good with guns.

But Peter doesn’t think bombs have ever been used for anything good across the entire damn world.

“Hey, Peter?”

He stops, closes his eyes–

“You okay?”

Ned is–

Ned is good.

Ned is good and grounded and they used to build Legos so often they’d get callouses.

Used to.

_Used to used to used to._

“Don’t like bombs.” Peter manages to grit out, and _shit,_ but his hands are shaking.

Visibly.

This isn’t–

It’s not the same.

The other time was C-4, was planted with _his help,_ was done with the knowledge that they had only a couple minutes to run and–

And Matt had stayed.

Matt had stayed.

Matt had said _I’m sorry._

Matt had–

Peter bottles up all the broken glass in his chest, grabs a cracked piece of plating, and hurls it as hard as he can into the opposite wall.

It cuts through the steel like hot butter and _sinks._

He only feels a little bit better.

It still hurts.

There’s still energy burning him up from the inside.

He needs to calm down.

_He needs to calm down._

He thinks that Hell’s Kitchen might be getting a visit tonight.

Peter digs his _shaky damn hands_ into his hair, leans on his elbows, and tries to just _breathe._

_Just breathe._

_In,_

_One, two, three,_

_Out,_

_Four, five, six._

_In,_

_One, two, three,_

_Out,_

_Four, five, six._

_Breathe._

_Just breathe._

_It’s okay._

_Everything is okay._

_He’s okay._

Peter opens his eyes, and wonders when he shut them.

The Chitauri energy core stares back up at him.

Purple and glowing and situationally a _bomb._

He shoves it away, and, with a dim and dawning sort of recognition that MJ and Ned just saw him have a near-panic attack, licks his lips, and says, “What do you see?”

There’s silence for a moment, and Peter continues to stare at the top of his desk, following the faux wood grains with his eyes.

The desk top was metal, but the first small, dumb project Mr. Stark had ever given him was to make a hologram that would change the appearance of his desk.

He’d picked dark wood.

It reminded him of home.

There’s a soft inhale, from Ned, like he’s about to speak, and Peter closes his eyes again.

“It’s connected to a bunch of microprocessors.” His voice says, the undercurrent so very soft. Maybe for Peter’s benefit. Probably for Peter’s benefit. “And… that's uh, an inductive charging plate. What you use on like, sonic toothbrushes.”

“It’s a tech mix.” MJ’s voice tells him, and he twitches his head a little towards the sound. “Someone’s combining alien tech with ours.”

There’s a little hitch in Ned’s breathing.

“That is _the_ coolest sentence ever said.” He whispers with something almost like reverence, and Peter has to laugh, just a litte.

Just a little.

“Which would mean,” he starts, so very carefully against the sand still in his throat, “That the question of the hour is: Where are these guys _now?”_

There’s a hum from the walls.

“Would you like me to engage the tracking program on the bugs planted upon the wheel wells of the unmarked van, Mr. Parker?” FRIDAY asks pleasantly.

Peter bluescreens.

“The _what.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you couldn't tell: I'm completely bullshiting Weasel's character because all I know of him is from other fics, rest in rip me.  
> Peter is having a time


	6. The Hospitaller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miss Romanoff smiles.  
> It’s far too nice and far too inviting.  
> Especially when he’s seen it be full of knives.  
> A fox grin in a human face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a really long time and I'm SORRY but I've had robots on the brain and little else  
> The Hospitaller is Saint Julian, patron saint of murderers

“You bugged them?” Peter asks carefully, something knotted and strangled sitting in his chest.

“While you were collapsed after being hit with the Chitauri weapon, yes.” His suit AI answers smoothly from his phone’s speaker. “I was unsure of your reaction time and if they would get away, so I left a tracking device under a wheel well.”

“Tracking device.” He repeats dully.

“Small mechanical spiders with their own independent thinking AIs.” The voice hums.

Peter takes a deep breath, and then carefully unclenches his fists.

There’s the smell of copper, cloying on his tongue, and he shakes out the crescents cut into his palms.

They only sting a little.

Definitely not as much as Mr. Stark  _ going behind his back and modding his suit. _

They had rules, and those rules were followed, and that’s what made this whole secret identity/job/internship thing  _ work. _

Mr. Stark had said he would stay out of his suit.

He’d  _ promised. _

It’s a small betrayal, and it’s helping him in the long run, but it still  _ simmers  _ and  _ boils  _ and the heat waves make him angrier than he thinks he ought to be.

“Where is he now?” Peter asks with a controlled sort of fury that hurts more than it should.

“He?”

“Stark.”

“Boss is currently still in his meeting with Mr. Pym. Would you like me to call him, Mr. Parker?” FRIDAY questions politely.

“No.” Peter says in his most careful voice. “I can wait.”

“If you say so, Mr. Parker. Have you looked at Miss Romanoff’s message yet?”

_ Miss Romanoff’s…? _

The  _ alert. _

“No.” He repeats, and turns his attention back to his desk. 

Which.

Like.

He was  _ busy. _

Not having a panic attack, causing lab damage, fielding MJ–

_ Fielding MJ. _

_ MJ and Ned. _

He spins back around, hands bracing on the edge of his desk.

They stare at him, MJ with something like expectation and Ned with something like worry.

“Chitauri weapon?” MJ asks lightly, and Peter wrinkles his nose.

“I got shot. It happens. Whited out for a bit. Don’t worry about it.” 

“The message, Mr. Parker.” FRIDAY says before he can dig himself a bigger hole.

“The message!” He spins back to face his desk and roots around in the drawers before he looks up and–

There.

Stuck to his white board with a spider magnet left over from Halloween, a piece of printer paper folded into itself and penned with a red hourglass.

Peter takes it with careful hands and unfolds it, smoothing it out against the surface of his desk.

_ Meet me when you get here,  _ it reads in looping scrawl,  _ I’m down in the gym. _

Well.

That’s not a good sign.

But maybe he’ll feel less like killing someone– _ coughcoughTonycoughcough _ – if he’s already punched out some of the anger.

Some of the rage and fury, and boiled it down into apathy and the acid old bruises.

It’s fine.

It’s  _ fine. _

Peter glances over his shoulder, and folds the note back up before stuffing it into one of his desk drawers.

MJ still has that look of expectation, and Ned’s managed to look a little curious now behind the worry, and he briefly weighs the possibilities, of what good or bad could come from his friends meeting Miss Romanoff who knows far too much about him for comfort.

Then he scoffs to himself.

Was there really any other option?

“How do you guys feel about meeting the most dangerous spider in the world?”

———

Miss Romanoff is bent up in some ballet form when Peter pushes the gym door open with his shoulder, back to them, but she greets them anyway.

“Hello,  _ маленький дьявол  _ and friends." She says absently, slowly uncoiling into a standing position.

_ Malen'kiy d'yavol. _

_ Little devil. _

Peter purses his lips.

It still stings.

“I have a name, Miss Romanoff.” He grumbles, sticking his backpack onto one of the empty coat hooks.

“I’m aware, Peter Benjamin Parker.” She says, folding back in a stretch that makes her back crack so loudly he doesn’t think he’d need enhanced senses to hear.

“Now you’re just showing off.” He protests, shrugging off his jacket.

It’s weirdly warm in the gym today.

Usually it’s freezing.

The whole tower kind of is.

He thinks it probably has something to do with keeping everything from overheating.

“I would never.” Miss Romanoff scoffs before reaching a standing position and staying there. She looks at him with one raised eyebrow. “Introduce me to your friends, паук.”

Peter grimaces and folds his arms, squirming a little bit.

This feels like adding two volatile compounds together.

He doesn’t  _ like it. _

“Michelle, Ned, meet Natasha Romanoff.” He grits out, biting at the inside of his cheek. “Miss Romanoff, Michelle Jones and Ned Leeds.”

Miss Romanoff smiles.

It’s far too nice and far too inviting.

Especially when he’s seen it be full of knives.

A fox grin in a human face.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Miss Romanoff says warmly. “Clint’s told me about you from his texts with Peter.”

“That goddamn traitor,” falls out of Peter’s mouth at the same time as MJ’s triumphant hiss of,  _ “I knew it,” _ followed by Ned going, “Oh my god Clint  _ is  _ Hawkeye.”

Which.

What.

Why.

Nope, nope, not thinking about his friends talking about him behind his back, it’s only fair,  _ not thinking about it. _

“I’m gonna steal his dog,” Peter declares loudly, maybe louder than he needs to, to drive away the thoughts. “I’m gonna steal his dog, give his dog to the Punisher, and  _ laugh at him  _ as he tries to figure out where Lucky is.” 

He was reasonably sure Mr. Castle was back in town at this point.

Reasonably sure.

Reasonably sure-ish.

“Barnes likes dogs.” Miss Romanoff suggests without any sympathy to the promised dognapping of her friend’s dog.

“JB’s the obvious choice,” Peter wrinkles his nose. “I’m thinkin’ outside the box here, Miss Romanoff. People never expect the Punisher to have someone’s dog.”

“Ah,” Miss Romanoff says with the same sort of sageness that– that Matt used to when he thought Peter was being too serious. “I see.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“But it’s so _easy_ паук.” She grins with a mouth full of bared teeth, and it’s far more familiar than her playing nice.

He knows her aggression and he knows her sympathy and he knows that  _ she knows  _ more about him than most people, but the thought of her being nice and kind is so  _ foreign  _ and he doesn’t– 

He doesn’t know how to deal with kindness sometimes.

Especially not from  _ the Black Widow. _

Like compliments.

He’s allergic to them.

They give him hives.

Make him break out.

It’s terrible, really.

It’s–

Miss Romanoff is deflecting.

Asking after him and prodding him along the lines of a conversation with jabs of information and phrases, acting like they came down to visit when she was the one that called them there with a note and a time and a place.

A shepherd with a lost sheep.

He frowns, and says then, very decisively, “You left me note. Why?” 

Miss Romanoff grins wider, edging into a smirk as she looks at him with hooded eyes.

“Your suit notified me when the trackers were deployed.” She tells him, amusement curling around her voice as the world grinds to a halt.

The trackers.

And he–

He forgets his audience.

He forgets the lights, and the gym, and the lack of weight bound around his clenched fists.

He forgets.

Because there’s a target for his anger in front of him.

There’s a target, and he doesn’t understand  _ why. _

_ “You  _ modified my suit.” Peter accuses angrily, and it’s not the same kind of anger he held at Stark.

Stark was betrayal of an agreement.

Stark was a crossed line.

But at least he  _ knows him. _

He doesn’t know Miss Romanoff.

She knows him, but  _ he doesn’t know her. _

And she–

She modified his suit when he wasn’t looking.

He doesn’t know how, but she  _ did. _

She inserted herself neatly into his life, into the narrative, into the script of this play they’re in back in Siberia, and she’s just kept showing up since.

And he just–

Peter just can’t understand  _ why. _

Because she knew his  _ parents? _

Because she feels  _ guilty? _

Because she  _ can? _

It just–

It just makes him feel angrier because that’s what he  _ does. _

He gets angry.

Especially when it’s personal.

“I did.” The Black Widow acquiesces, not the least bit sorry in any inch, and it–

He tries to pull the anger back in, tries to push it into a bottle he can smash later, corks it and stuffs it deep into his chest so far it feels heavy and weighted and choking.

“What are you  _ doing?”  _ He hisses, jaw clenched and tone even and  _ far  _ too many teeth for Peter Parker.

“Making your life easier.” The Black Widow tells him calmly, not even twitching.

He never  _ asked her to. _

“I don’t want it.” He grits out with a snarl that’s  _ too angry calm down calm down push it down until you can breathe freely _ – “I don’t want your help. I’m fine. I have people. I didn’t  _ ask for you to _ – I don’t understand why you even  _ care.” _

“Clint. Your parents. Tony.” The Black Widow lists easily, absently, gaze never straying. “Barnes. Pepper. Because I felt like it.”

“I  _ have help,”  _ he argues, jaw clenched so hard it hurts as he tries not to howl. “I have  _ plenty of help  _ and I didn’  _ ask for yours.” _

“You didn’t have to.” The Black Widow says, still  _ so damn calm. _

He throws up his hands in an angry gesture that he has to wrestle back under control, folding his arms tightly to his chest that feels too jittery and too hot and too full.

“I didn’  _ want it!”  _ He near shouts. “You modified my suit! Without my asking! That’s– ’m not gonna be okay with that! That’s– why did you even  _ do that? _ ”

“Why are you angry?” The Black Widow asks him instead of answering, and the response is so unexpected it nearly throws him for a loop.

“Why ‘m I–” He bares his teeth. “You went behind my back! You did somethin’ to  _ my suit!  _ You–”

“Are you angry because I modified your suit,” the Black Widow interrupts, leaning forward, ancient eyes in a porcelain face, “Or are you angry because you don’t understand why?”

_ Because he _ –

“You don’ get to just– you don’ get to just say you knew my parents an– an’ that they’d be  _ proud of me,  _ and keep traipsing through my life!” He yells now, voice rising, fury boiling over so hotly it burns. “You knew them? So what! You weren’t there! You weren’t there  _ when you could’ve been!  _ You don’ get to act like you suddenly have a say in my life! You’re a  _ stranger,  _ you’re–”

“Doing what I  _ can.”  _ The Black Widow suddenly snarls, stone snapping and shattering under the pressure of ice. “Mary and Richard died because what they did was  _ dangerous.  _ Them dying was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to you, because it brought the danger  _ away. _ It made you  _ safer.  _ When they died– no one looked into it. It was scrapped as an accident and  _ discarded.”  _

He chokes on nothing.

He chokes on air.

The Black Widow breathes heavily for barely any time at all, great heaving breaths, before she seems to fold into herself, face smoothing, shoulders lowering.

A riptide hidden by the calm sea.

“The Parkers disappeared into a list of the fallen.” The Black Widow says dully, eyes flat as she looks anywhere but him. “No one looked. No one cared. Clint and I launched our own investigation. Whatever they’d been working on– some genetics project– it was worth killing for. It was worth making them disappear. I wasn’t going to risk anymore Parkers being killed and ruled as accidents by staying.”

The world stops moving all over again.

It stops and stills and suffocates on nothing, dead and dying between one moment and the next.

He–

He can’t–

“You were supposed to stay  _ safe.”  _ The Black Widow grinds out, finally looking at him with eyes so dark and heavy he thinks he might just crumble under the weight. “Stay out of all of this, where they– where  _ HYDRA _ – couldn’t get to you. But you didn’t. So I’m doing the best I can for Mary and Richard’s son. I’m doing the best I can for  _ you.  _ You want to get yourself killed just like them? Then I’m going to do my  _ damnedest  _ to stop that from happening. I’m not losing anymore Parkers. Do you understand  _ that?” _

He swallows past the lump in his throat, shudders in place because he’s suddenly so  _ cold,  _ tries to feel less like a fire that’s burned out to ash.

“No one asked you to,” he whispers into the wide open wide, breathes a secret out into the memory of a tundra that was so cold he felt like he might die.

“No one had to.” Miss Romanoff says just as quietly. “The Parkers were good people. Too good. You’re better. I’m not helping you. I’m really just helping myself. It’s selfish, kid.”

But he’s not better.

He’s not.

He’s so angry.

He’s so bitter.

And the Parkers were  _ kind. _

His  _ parents  _ were  _ kind. _

He… he isn’t.

But it’s like he suddenly doesn’t have any energy to protest at all.

“But  _ why?”  _ He asks weakly, hands shaking where he’s folded them into his arms.

Miss Romanoff’s blankness changes to a confused sort of bemusement.

And she says, “I got so good at pretending to have a guilt complex that sometimes I even think it’s real and then I can’t move on.”

He doesn’t–

He doesn’t know what to say to that.

He starts to open his mouth to speak anyway, but–

"I'm not helping you," Miss Romanoff repeats, cutting him off, and his jaw clicks shut. "I'm helping myself."

"I don' think–"

"It makes me feel better," Miss Romanoff interrupts very firmly, and he… he can’t tell if she's lying or not. Her heartbeat is one of the steadiest he's ever heard.

"And if you don't let me," she continues to intone very seriously, something warmer entering her tone as the frost starts to thaw, "I will be very upset. It will crush me. I will never recover."

Peter clenches and unclenches his buried fists, letting them curl and start to cut before releasing.

He closes his eyes and decides he’s tired.

He was having a good-ish day.

Got more than four hours of sleep or something.

Flash didn’t look unreadable in his general direction.

No after-school practice.

But now he’s just… 

He’s just tired.

It feels like that’s all he is, sometimes.

Tired, or angry.

Once in a blue moon, he might feel happy.

He misses feeling happy all the time.

He misses laughing all the time.

He misses being just Peter Parker.

"I don’ want you t’help me, Miss Romanoff,” he breathes then, so tired of being angry about being tired about being angry. “I have more ‘an I know what t’ do with.”

And then Miss Romanoff is suddenly there, quiet as a ghost, and she telegraphs the movement before she grabs his shoulder, the same one from Siberia.

"I'm not helping you," she repeats softly, one final time. "I’m helping myself."

And he’s– 

The exhaustion drags him down for one long, aching moment, and it  _ hurts. _

Ugh.

He hates being emotionally vulnerable.

He hates being so angry it’s like he’s never been anything else.

He hates–

He hates being  _ mad  _ when he should just be  _ reasonable. _

It’s so–

It’s so  _ frustrating  _ and it just makes him  _ more  _ mad and–

And it’s–

He closes his eyes and presses his palms into them and tries to expand his focus beyond himself and–

_ Fuck. _

He.

Forgot.

That Ned and MJ were there.

Watching him.

Have a breakdown.

Silently.

_ Fuck fuck fuck. _

“ _ I’m sorry,”  _ he groans out, and tries to melt into the floor.

God.

That’s–

_ Noooooo. _

_ The mortifying ordeal of being knoooown. _

_ He can’t. _

Peter hates this honesty thing.

He’s decided he hates it.

It’s so uncomfortable.

“... are you guys always this intense?” Ned asks weakly, with a choked off sort of wheeze, and Peter feels like dying even more.

“Oh yeah.” Miss Romanoff says evenly, vulnerability melting away and back into stoic calmness with a practiced sort of ease. “Stark has a mental breakdown at least once a month about something or other, and Clint has a designated couch for throwing himself on. And a perch. It’s basically a human-sized cat tree.”

“Can  _ I  _ go to the human-sized cat tree?” He  _ doesn’t _ whine, and inches a little bit closer to the floor.

“Are you a human-sized cat?” Miss Romanoff asks entirely too reasonably.

“Is  _ Clint _ a human-sized cat?” Peter offers back.

“One could argue.” 

“Can you though?”

“The whiplash from this conversation is giving me friction burns,” MJ whispers to Ned, but there’s a fascinated sort of note to it, like she’s itching to start jotting things down.

Which, knowing her, she probably is.

That was her  _ thing. _

He’s seen her conspiracy boards.

They’re color coded.

It’s very organized.

“Oh you should see Tony and Steve’s rows,” Miss Romanoff tells them conversationally. “They’re both too stubborn to back down and half of it is just angry glaring and eventually they get to a point that they’re not even arguing about whatever started it in the first place. It’s a whole event.”

“Have you considered group therapy?” MJ poses slowly, skeptically, and he can almost see the way she must be clasping her hands to point both index fingers together at them.

“That is group therapy.”

“Ah. Have  _ you  _ considered group therapy? Or just regular therapy?” MJ says more pointedly this time, and it takes Peter a second to realize she’s speaking to him.

“The Falcon keeps trying.” He offers like an olive branch, and finally melts all the way onto the floor.

Miss Romanoff lets him, because she’s nice like that.

“And you don’t  _ let him?”  _ MJ asks, and now that he can see her face– because he’s flat on his back– he thinks it looks something like a mix between confused and mildly irritated.

A solid  _ baffled. _

“I’ve got a lot of baggage that ain’t necessarily his business.” Peter says carefully. “Secrets t’ keep an’ such.”

“That’s not very healthy.”

He sniffs as haughtily as he can. “That’s how it works. We can’t all be Wade or Mr. Stark.  _ Some of us  _ have double lives.” 

“Ah,” Miss Romanoff hums. “So you  _ are  _ hanging around Deadpool.”

“He drove me home last night.” Peter offers, and it is very much not moody or grumpy. “He’s conspiring with my aunt about my wellbeing.”

“How awful.”

“It’s disgusting and I hate it.” He says as dramatically as he can. “Why did you have the AI alert you about the trackers?”

If Miss Romanoff is surprised by the abrupt subject change, she doesn’t show it.

Super spy and all that.

“I knew you would assume it was Tony, so I figured I’d just get it out in the open.” She offers easily with a shrug.

“Exposin’ yourself seems like a very bad strategy for a spy.” Peter tells her skeptically.

“A  _ smart _ spy knows how to control a  _ situation,” _ Miss Romanoff counters in response. “I wanted to talk. We’re talking. Seems like I won, really.”

He makes a disquieted noise, but doesn’t say anything from his place on the floor.

He just stares at the ceiling, and tries to think.

And then he says, “FRIDAY, can you engage the trackers?”

———

Miss Romanoff shoos them away after weaseling a promise to stay in touch out of him, and they don’t go back upstairs.

He’d put away the Chitauri core before they’d gone down to the gym– because he was  _ paranoid  _ because it was a  _ bomb _ – so there’s really nothing left besides his normal rounds but he–

He doesn’t really feel up to them today, and FRIDAY slots him into the system as taking a time off, and they just… 

Leave.

Angela eyes them like a shark as they walk through the lobby, which he attributes to the fact that he forgot to get FRIDAY to make MJ and Ned IDs because he was  _ busy  _ having a series of  _ crises. _

It’s a familiar feeling.

Both the crisis-having and Angela glaring at him while she shuffles paperwork.

They’re at a stalemate at this point.

Near all out war.

It will be bloody.

And waiting for them, when they step out of the revolving door, there’s Happy.

“Natasha called me.” He offers before Peter can protest. “You want a ride or do you want to take the train?”

Miss. Romanoff.  _ Why. _

“Aren’t you busy with the move right now?” He asks instead of answering, and Happy rolls his eyes.

“I’m on a break, kid. Now. Ride. Yes/no?”

Peter squints and makes a face.

He tries very hard not to mug at him.

Ugh.

Does he  _ want  _ to take the  _ train? _

Today?

Not… not really.

_ Ugh. _

_ Fine. _

“I accept your offer under extreme duress.” Peter tells him flatly.

Happy scoffs as he opens the back left-side door.

“Sure you do. In the car, kid and friends.”

They get in the car.

He thinks it might be the same one that him and Foggy took to the landing strip to meet with Bucky.

Same leather seats and same dark paint and same divider that goes up the middle to separate the driver and the passengers.

It’s a nice car.

He curls up against the left window just like last time, and Ned sits between him and MJ.

“Same location as last time?” Happy asks gruffly from the driver’s seat, and Peter mumbles out a “ _ yes,”  _ and the car gently pulls into traffic.

None of them speak, and he pulls out his phone to eye the tracking program blinking up at him.

He’d already had one for the ones he used when he wasn’t Spider-man, so routing the new ones into it hadn’t been that hard.

The locator beacon shines on his map, pinned down in Maryland.

He has no idea what’s in Maryland.

More importantly, he can’t  _ go  _ to Maryland.

His competition is on Saturday, and they’re leaving tomorrow.

He said he was going to go,  _ promised  _ he was going to go, and he can’t miss it, not something this important–

But–

But someone else  _ can. _

“Happy, can you put up the divider?” Peter asks as politely as he can, pressing his phone to his chest and ignoring the weird look MJ gives him. “I need to make a phone call.”

Happy doesn’t answer, but the divider goes up anyway, and he barely waits for it to click into place along the roof before ripping his phone back away and scrambling into his contacts.

It only rings twice before there’s an answering, “Hrello? This is the offices of Wade Wilson speaki–”

“Hey remember how you said you wanted me to delegate more?” Peter interrupts brusquely, and there’s a pause on the other end, for one long moment.

Then there’s a squeal, and the sound of something crashing to the floor.

“O-M-G, are you asking for more help?” Wade yells excitedly, and there’s another thud. “You’re doing so good this week, buddy! Whatchu need, boo?”

“Can you track some guys for me?” He asks apprehensively, tapping his fingers against his drawn up knees.

Wade will probably stay yes but he’s not–

Asking for help isn’t comfortable.

It’s hard.

Especially for something like this.

“Oh, fo’ sho’.” Wade answers immediately, a dull clacking sound ringing in the background rhythmically, kind of like fingers drumming on wood. “I’m assuming you want them alive?”

Peter pauses for a moment, to remember that Wade does, in fact, kill people for a living.

That was how they  _ met. _

Because someone wanted the Antichrist dead and Wade had picked up the card.   
Then he shakes his head to brush out the thoughts that he doesn’t have time for and keeps talking.

“Yes, Wade, I want them alive.” He steadfastly ignores the choking sound next to him as Ned wheezes, and the sound of a seat belt locking into place as MJ rapidly leans forward. “Not being seen at all would be preferable. I’m gonna be in the area tomorrow night, but then I’ll be in Washington for the day. I have an AcaDec thing.”

“Awwww, that’s right you’re a nerd.” Wade coos over the line.

“Shut up.”

“A very rude nerd. But naw, I can do that. Easy peasy stuff, baby boy. Whatchu got for me?”

Peter spares a second to think about it, and then says, “I don’t have a name, but I have a lot of descriptions and coordinates to a possible base.”

“One mo’” Wade mumbles, and there’s the sound of something rattling across a counter. It sounds kind of like– pencils, maybe? Is Wade getting a pencil and paper? “M’kay, hit me.”

“It’s my Chitauri guys,” he starts with, and his back twinges with phantom pains. “Same guys that dropped me in that lake last night. I bugged their gun running van, and I’ve got a location up in Maryland.”

“Yeah?”

“Saw two, technically three, guys last night. White guy with a beard that shot me, darker skinned guy that was driving, and Bird Guy who dropped me.” He rattles off, doing his best to pretend that the blood isn’t draining out of Ned’s face. “When I say Bird Guy I mean like– giant mechanical wings and these support structure talon things on his legs. He had a mask and these goggles that glowed green and a big aviator jacket, kinda like yours. I think it was anti-grav tech, but he definitely had turbines and an engine pack, and when I stabbed the back of the rig with one of the feathers, he dropped me and went down somewhere.”

“Oh yikes. I’ll keep an eye out. Anythin’ else, doll?”

“There was a potential buyer, but he seemed pretty freaked out. I’ll look into him if I need to.”

“Gotcha.” Wade says absently, like if he was chewing gum he’d chosen that point to loudly pop a bubble. “I’ll clear my schedule and look into it. You have fun at your nerd thing, okay?”

He… 

He hesitates.

Something nags at him, and he really shouldn’t, it’s weird and stupid and dumb, but–

“It’s the National Academic Decathlon Competition. If you have– time.” He blurts out awkwardly and cringes all over but  _ just keeps talking _ – “Double D used to– I know that JB is gonna try and make it because he can now but May can’t because of her night shifts and Foggy has a big case and I just– sorry, that was stupid–”

“You want me to be at your nerd thing?” Wade interrupts softly, disbelievingly, and Peter–

“It was just a suggestion?” He says weakly, but it sounds more like a question than a statement. “You don’t have to–”

“I’ll be there.” Wade interrupts again, voice hard as steel, the same sort of strange seriousness making itself known. “Can’t promise I won’t scare anyone– I wear a mask for a reason– but I’ll do my best. Okay? It’s not stupid. You’re not stupid. Who am I rooting for?”

Peter blinks rapidly and tries to remember how to breathe.

“Yellow jackets,” he manages to croak out. “We wear yellow jackets.”

“I’ll be the most obnoxious bitch there every time you little yellow munchkins get a point or whatever, you just watch.” Wade swears, and it almost sounds like a threat, the angry, determined way he says it. “I’ll be like those PTA moms you  _ hate.  _ I  _ will  _ be Helen, so help me god. You hear me, baby boy? I’m gonna embarrass the  _ fuck  _ out of you. I’ll make you rue the day you ever invited me to a public social function.”

And Peter–

Laughs.

He laughs so hard it starts to hurt, choking out a hacking cough as he tries to breathe.

“There he is!” Wade crows over the line. “I’ll let you know what I find, boo, and I’ll be at your nerd thing. I’ll take a bunch of pictures for your aunt and everything. Pinky promise. Got it?”

Peter coughs out another laugh, and manages a,  _ “Got it,”  _ before he’s coughing again.

“Good,” Wade says decisively. “Drink some water, honey, T-T-Y-L.”

“I can’t believe you just said T-T-Y-L verbally and unironically.” He snickers out.

“Believe it, boo.” Wade clicks his tongue, and then there’s a little tone as the call disconnects.

Peter sort of just– stares at his phone in disbelief for a moment.

And then he whacks himself in the forehead with it.

“I can’t  _ believe  _ I just invited  _ Deadpool  _ to my  _ AcaDec competition.”  _ He hisses out to himself. “Is this because of all the concussions? Is this the repercussions of repeated head trauma?”

“Who’s  _ Deadpool?”  _ MJ hisses from the other side of Ned, and he almost startles out of his seat.

Jesus.

Christ.

He  _ needs  _ to stop forgetting about his friends, he’s just–

He’s so used to doing all of this… by himself, or with people that already  _ know  _ or–

Or whatever.

Not with people that don’t already have all the pieces.

“He’s a mercenary that tried to kill me?” Falls out of his mouth like a clumsy thing, and Ned goes even paler.

God, he’s the worst friend.

What does he do to Ned’s blood pressure?

His stress levels?

Only bad things, he’s sure.

Only bad things.

“He–” Ned cuts himself off and lowers his voice into a hiss. “He tried to  _ kill you?” _

“A lot of people try to kill me?” He offers like that’s any better. “He didn’t get very far, because– I’m not an adult, and he only kills adults, so. It worked out. He buys me Thai food. And tries to get me to sleep more. He’s nice.”

Ned purses his lips.

“I’m concerned about your definition of nice.” He says in a suspicious sort of voice.

“It’s fine,” Peter says as evenly as he can. “He’s been… he’s been really helpful.”

MJ moves the seat belt over her head to rest against the seat so she can lean even further across Ned.

“When did you meet him?” She asks him slowly, curiously, a knowing sort of look in her eyes.

“Summer break?” He answers tentatively, and MJ crows in victory, pumping her fists into the air.

“I knew something happened!” She says triumphantly. “It was  _ this guy.” _

“I– what?”

MJ points a finger in his face.

“You started acting weird after summer break started,” she accuses. “You started acting  _ better.  _ We hadn’t seen you smile in  _ months,  _ did you know that? And then suddenly you– you  _ laughed  _ about something. I couldn’t figure out what it was, and then I realized it had to be someone else and– it was him. He did that. What did he do?”

Peter blinks rapidly, and swallows, leaning a little bit more into the door.

He doesn’t–

He doesn’t know how to process all of–

Of that.

“I– uh–” He swallows again, and threads his fingers together. “I tried to attack him, and I fell, and he– he caught me. Even though it was hurting him. And he… talked to me. While he was bleeding. And he asked if he was allowed to help me.”

MJ and Ned stare at him.

“Allowed?” MJ repeats slowly, and Peter nods, once.

“He asked if I would let him help me.” He says quietly, and looks determinedly out the window, hunching his shoulders. “And I was– I was tired. And dizzy. And he was– he was the only thing holding me up from falling. And I said yes. I wanted him to help me. So he… he did. He made it easier.”

MJ and Ned  _ stare  _ at him.

He can see their reflections in the window.

And then Ned’s face– softens.

Ever so slightly.

And MJ’s shoulders lower just a tad.

And they trade a glance.

And Ned says, “Does he like animals?”

Peter is, for just a moment, thrown by the non-sequitur.

“What?”

“It’s just that–” Ned makes a face, and then continues. “He helped you. He helped you get better. So we’ve gotta thank him.”

MJ hums speculatively at her phone, then, and something like a delirious sort of dread starts to fill his stomach but–

But it’s a good kind of dread.

If that makes sense.

A good kind of dread.

And MJ curiously asks, 

“Does he like rabbits?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy almost 2021 y'all, may 2020 rest in FUCKING peace

**Author's Note:**

> >:3c


End file.
